Mosaic
by ForsakenKalika
Summary: "You will know her by her magic... she will know you by your name." Left behind by her friends, a decades old prophecy comes to fruition, and it only takes the Cruciatus Curse to accomplish. But to what end? Dark!Hermione and Tom being Tom. Content/Trigger warnings inside. M for a reason.
1. Chapter 1

I'm a horrible person who should be working on "Ardent" and the final chapter of "Busting Boulanger," I know. Unfortunately, this plunny decided to overtake my brain. This will have sporadic updates, and has trigger warnings up the wazoo. Speaking of…

This is the only trigger warning which will be found in the entire fic. If you disregard it, that's on you, not me. In short, batshit, calculated, extreme and sometimes graphic violence, mentioned of sexual assault, smut… I mean, I'm going ham on this. Since I have a Lightish!Hermione fic out ("BB"), and a FirmlyGrey!Hermione ("Ardent"), I may as well get into the spirit and break out one of my versions of a Dark!Hermione.

Hopefully you enioy this. For anyone interested, there is a playlist I use for this when writing, on Youtube, and I have a link available upon request. I appreciate well thought out concrit, so feel free to send me a message and let me know what is on your mind. I don't have a beta, so I'm sort of just... doing my best.

Thank you to a few people for aiding in this. By a few, I mean Bri, Freya, everyone on the DEE and DHDA.

I own 13 snakes, not one of then is Nagini. I also don't own Harry Potter of any of J.K. Rowling's related property. This is the only disclaimer for the rest of the story.

Original photos used in aesthetic property of Stacee Magee (ForsakenKalika, 'A Serpent in Hand') and Briana Quinette Williams (Bs and Qs Art on Facebook, 'Desolated Wasteland' series). Do not use or replicate without express permission.

* * *

CH 1

" _Your equal in might_

 _You will know her by her magic."_

The Seer's words filtered through his consciousness as clearly as if she were speaking in his ear, rather than across the length of the dusty floor of a Knockturn Alley antiquities dealer fifty years past. A shiver ran along his straight spine and his darkened gaze turned toward the figure laid arching in pain on the oak wood flooring. Through the cracked door, he watched as an obviously unhinged Dark witch stepped forward, pointing her wand at the mass on the floor, all hair and bird-fine bones.

" _Of wild hair and keen eyes,_

 _Short of stature and temperament."_

He had initially passed off the statements as the words of a woman just this side of a mental breakdown. In no way would he ever have an **equal**. The idea alone had sparked an incredulous laugh. It was only when he had come closer to the dotty old woman in Borgin and Burke's that he noticed the milky haze of prophecy coating her eyes.

" _She will know you by your name,_

 _Tom Marvolo Riddle."_

Lucius had done something correctly for a change and called him, with a simple touch of a wand to the mark on his arm during the din of confusion. As Narcissa and Lucius stood back and allowed Bellatrix to drag the girl into their drawing room, their son had been frozen in place watching as Potter and his red-headed sidekick had been moved through a side door to the dungeons screaming for their companion only moments earlier while Bellatrix worked on her captive. Before the Black witch could act again however, chaos erupted in the form of a freed elf. It hadn't mattered. Not really. Bella had wrapped an arm around the girl's throat and dragged her back, out of the way of the crashing chandelier, only suffering minor cuts from the shattered crystal.

The last sound heard as the elf Disapparated with the two was the cry of the girl's name and Bellatrix's shout as she threw her cursed blade with professional acumen. "'Mione!"

While Bella was distracted, knelt and basking in the spots of elfen blood on the floor, the girl - Mudblood Hermione Granger - twitched slightly and grasped her captor's forgotten wand where it lay beside them. Up her sleeve it went with the agility of a seasoned thief while her face remained impassive, nearly slack with catatonia. Still, he watched from his place on the other side of the door, intuition telling him things were about to become-

"Interesting," Bella spoke, her attention moving back to the girl in her arms. With her disturbingly childlike voice, she turned the younger witch's head this way and that, as though talking to a puppy. "Still with us, Muddy? Your friends just left you here. Can you believe that?" Her voice rasped at the teenager, still blankly gazing at nothing from her location half in the older woman's lap. "Seems they know exactly what you are. Trash. Detritus. Useless and weak."

The manic witch rose, dropping the upper half of the girl's body with an audible thud. He was impressed she didn't even flinch when her head smacked upon the flooring, turning instead to gaze toward the Malfoys standing by the door. Toward **him**. The movement of blood trickling from a cut on her throat drew his attention briefly curling his lips back before Voldemort could stop it. Schooling his features back to impassivity, his eyes flew back to Bellatrix circling around her scanning the floor. "Where is it?"

"Where is what, sister?" Narcissa's voice questioned, unseen from his limited vantage point. The matriarch's voice was filled with exhaustion tainted with the subtle hint of fear.

"My wand, Cissy!" Bellatrix raged and kicked the Mudblood to the side, rolling her over to check beneath her. "I swear if that ruddy elf- No matter. Lend me yours!" As soon as Narcissa had tossed her wand to her sister, who grasped it and spun back to her victim, a burst of magic shook the room, dropping everyone inside to their knees. The keening wail of a tempestuous wind sounded, forcing them to cover their ears and clench their eyes, and to his interest, the girl moved.

" _You will know her by her magic."_

With no emotion, no indication she had been tortured for hours, Hermione Granger calmly sat up.

* * *

In the recesses of her mind, Hermione heard the words which had been laughed at her through the years, mirroring the mad witch who now sat curled in on herself, clutching her head. From between eyelids half-clenched in pain, she recognized the damp stone walls around her. 'Potions,' she thought numbly, hearing the reverberation of her realization ring through her.

 _Filthy little Mudblood._

 _Insufferable know-it-all._

 _Know your betters._

 _Trash._

 _Traitor._

 _Disposable._

In her mindscape, she watched the words write themselves in stark white chalk upon the blackboard Professor Snape had once used before Slughorn had taken over. Hermione shook her head trying to dispel the morose sensation the scrawled words elicited, to no avail. The words themselves disappeared only to be replaced with Snape's own spiked handwriting.

 _Cauldron number twelve_

She turned toward the far side wall, remembering her snarky Potions professor had always kept the cauldrons there. As she moved toward them, Hermione noticed them labelled with small handwritten plaques beneath them. Only one matched the writing on the board, which had been replaced with another sentence.

 _Are you so far above your peers, you no longer need to follow directions? Number twelve, Miss Granger._

Hermione turned back to the cauldrons to see them now emitting various swirls of colour.

' _They were empty before… weren't they?'_ Starting at the cauldron before her, she moved along the row, reading the plaques until she reached her quarry.

 _ **Melissa Sherbrooke, 1983**_

 _ **Tyler Bennett, 1985**_

 _ **Louisa James, 1988**_

 _ **Antoinette Milieu, 1990**_

 _ **Severus Snape, 1991**_

She paused at that cauldron, confused as to why her professor's name was listed. The telltale scritching of chalk turned her head toward the board at the front of the room.

 _It is generally considered bad form to attempt to immolate a professor, Miss Granger. Keep moving._

Her stomach churned as she considered the names she had just passed before reaching his. She dimly recalled one of the girls, Louisa, losing all of her lustrous straight hair in the days after putting chewing gum in Hermione's own tempestuous curls, forcing Jean Granger to cut them to ear length. The result had been a series of invasive tests for the other girl, as medical professionals worked to determine whether the cause of her hair loss was cancer. Hermione recalled with grim satisfaction the horror on Louisa's face as whole sections of her hair had begun to detach themselves from her previously perfect head while she brushed her hair before classes not ten minutes after she had teased Hermione for the unruly puff of kinky twists she had been left with. She immediately buried the feeling.

 _Come now, Miss Granger, tell the class how you really feel._

She turned away from the board with a huff and eyed the cauldrons again.

 **Sean O'Riordan, 1993**

Another tendril of glee curled through her remembering the freckle-faced, blue eyed git who had trapped her against the alley wall of her neighbourhood grocer, taunting her for her 'freakish' ways, and touching on her developing but still coltish body. She had kneed him in his bollocks to get free and run home, but that hadn't sated the desire for revenge in her heart. Almost two weeks later, she had overheard two girls discussing how the boy had boils and lesions all over his body, a cluster of which on his face spreading from one ruddy cheek to the other somehow spelling out "rapist." When he took his own life just before she began her next year at Hogwarts, Hermione hid her glee with false sympathy for her old classmate's parents.

 _Did he deserve it, Miss Granger?_

"Yes," she snapped back at the board before moving back to the next cauldrons.

 **Draco Malfoy, 1994**

 **Ronald Weasley, 1994**

 **Rita Skeeter, 1995**

Reliving this memory was a relished experience. The way she had trapped that snivelling reporter in an unbreakable jar for nearly two months, allowing Crookshanks to stand guard and taunt the animagus, batting it paw to paw. More satisfying was the twitching the transformed and captive witch had done in the vestiges of troubled sleep, courtesy of the Nightmare Potion Hermione had painstakingly dipped Rita's food into prior to dropping it in the jar.

 _10 points to Gryffindor for ingenuity._

 **Marietta Edgecombe, 1995**

 **Dolores Umbridge, 1996**

 **Jean and Roger Granger, 1997**

"This isn't right," Hermione murmured to the room. Spinning, she addressed the chalkboard again. "This isn't right!" She hadn't done a thing against her parents… except for the Obliviate she had placed upon them, wiping herself from their minds. "It was for their safety!"

 _Was it_?

"Wasn't it?" The response on the board had her falling against the cauldron lined table heavily, slopping the contents about.

 _You tell me._

With that, Hermione spun back toward the cauldron with her parents' names, slamming her palms down on either side and peering within. What she had at first thought were various potions based on the coloured fumes turned out to be, upon her inspection, vivid recollections. All the fights she had heard her parents have after one of her "incidents" when she was supposed to be in bed played before her. Though there was no audible noise, she could almost hear her father defending her to her mother as Jean railed on about the Devil and superstition. The scene changed to just after McGonagall's home visit, something which Hermione had not clearly recalled before. Her heart shattered a little seeing her mother clutching her rosary beads and blaming Roger for their daughter's abilities, her birthright. As though it were a Muggle video cassette player on fast-forward, the scenes quickly sped up to cycle through each return home from school, Jean becoming more and more distant from her husband and daughter. Her father had remained stoic through it all, a silent determination seeming to settle in his hazel eyes as the summers passed. Finally, the viscous fluid in the cauldron paused on a scene, this time allowing sound to be heard.

With trepidation, Hermione heard her father as he looked in on her sleeping form the night before her return to school Sixth Year, Jean standing behind him with a hateful stare toward the daughter she had once loved. "This is my fault, Jeannie. It's my blood that did this." Roger shifted his body toward his wife, regarding her without fully turning his back on his daughter. "I'll fix it. When she wakes up, she'll be better. Everything will be better."

A creeping feeling swept over her as Hermione watched, wide-eyed, tendrils of magic moving from Roger to her mother and her younger self. Her father, her own father, had somehow managed to ensorcell them, to- he was Obliviating them! Hermione pushed herself bodily away from the table, stumbling into the work tables behind her with a loud bang.

"Why?!" She shouted toward the blackboard. The betrayal ate at her skin, tiny pinpricks of sensation feeling like thousands of biting gnats. "Why did he do this?! How!"

 _Did you never register his lack of surprise when your Hogwarts letter arrived? It was either the love of his life, or his freak of a daughter. Which would YOU have chosen, Miss Granger?_

Rage boiled at her. She was not a freak. She was his daughter, his blood! Blood. Hers was boiling. The scratch of chalk only amplified it.

 _It's time to wake up, Miss Granger_

Hermione had no time to reply before the room had begun to dissipate around her. From the edges of her awareness, she felt a thin yet strong arm around her neck. Her body, slack with weakness, dragged heavily and quickly. A name. Her name. No, the nickname she had always hated, as though the person - **Ronald Weasley, 1994** \- who most used it were too lazy to sound out one extra syllable. A conduit of power next to her, which she grasped and hid away, not even feeling the motion. Small cuts, warm blood, sharp kicks to her ribs and back. A shrill voice screaming for a wand.

 _It's time to wake up, Miss Granger_.

So she did.

* * *

Scabior, of all people, was the first among those in the room to notice the girl was no longer prone on the floor. Before he could open his mouth, she pointed a wand toward him - Bellatrix's wand! - and he was forcefully moved backwards, flat against the wall of the once opulent drawing room. The slash of a smirk on her heart-shaped face sent a sense of foreboding through him. The wink she gave him, bringing her index finger to her lips to shush him, only deepened the feeling.

Fenrir was next to be fastened to the papered surface after the werewolf had released a uncomfortable, irritated growl despite the blood staining his ears from the sound moments before. The witch was not gentle by any means, muttering something Scabior was sure only the werewolf could hear. Whatever it was, it had the creature wide-eyed with rage. The fierce teeth which had gnashed at her in protest were clamped shut by an unseen force, blood dribbling down the werewolf's chin from the pressure with which they had snapped closed. Scabior felt the warmth of his bladder releasing as the little witch simply sliced the werewolf from groin to gullet before Fenrir could utter another sound.

Bellatrix stared wide-eyed at the scene before her from her place still knelt on the carpet run just feet from the younger witch who was finally standing. "You filthy little bi-" Her anger-filled insult cut off sharply as she felt her lips being sealed together.

"Ah-ah, Madame LeStrange," Hermione taunted, waving Bella's wand like the chastising digit of a schoolmarm. The Dark witch scrabbled at her mouth in a panic feeling only smooth skin, glaring hatefully at the muggleborn witch who was nearly dancing toward her daintily. Bella's muscles were taut with effort as she fought against bonds she couldn't see holding her to the floor.

"Do you kiss your Lord's feet with that- oh, well I guess you would have to have a mouth first, hmm?" A feral grin accompanied Hermione's words. Crouching before Bellatrix, Hermione plucked Narcissa's borrowed wand from her. She rose and put out a hand to pat the silenced witch on her matted curls, Bella trying to duck away with the minute movement she could manage. Hair fluffed this way and that as she tossed her head like an unruly horse. Hermione simply grasped a handful and, as though she hadn't spelled the mad witch to the floor, dragged her kicking form toward the three Malfoys crouched by the door.

To their surprise, she only tossed them a dismissive yet unimpressed look where they cowered, stopping before the cracked door. Pitch dark irises and blackened whites seemed to gleam in silent amusement as she noticed that Lucius had also messed himself. "Really," she tutted, Scourgifying the mess away. She smiled brilliantly when the man flinched, his wide grey eyes meeting hers in shock. When none of them moved against her, she opened the door fully and raised an eyebrow to the figure who stood behind it.

"Hello, Mr. Riddle," her voice was low, gravel-rough from her screams, but pleasant. She quirked her lips a bit and raised the hand which still held tight to Bellatrix's hair. "I believe this is yours."

* * *

 _ **January**_

"My Lord?" Bellatrix's voice resounded behind him in the otherwise still chamber. His occupation of the ancestral Malfoy home had granted Voldemort nearly the entirety of the second floor of the East Wing, allowing him the privacy and silence he so dearly needed in the form he had been relegated to after his resurrection. When Dumbledore - that meddlesome fool - had destroyed the the Gaunt ring, the resulting release of the part if his soul which had been encased within had triggered a similar effect from Voldemort's own reanimated body. Whole walls had been demolished, priceless artifacts and heirlooms destroyed from the shockwave. It was only some months before, around the time the wizened wizard plunged from the Astronomy Tower of his once beloved school, that Voldemort had found the ritual which would restore his physical form to that of his younger self. How much younger, he had been unable to guess, but younger nonetheless, and whole.

Perhaps it was conceit, but he really had missed having hair. A nose would be nice, as well. When he did conquer Wizarding Britain, he could only imagine that perhaps people might find him less terrifying if he didn't have the serpentine slits he had worn.

Voldemort raised his hand to examine it, the skin on his fingers a pale peach. His nails were long still, jagged and chipped at their tips, but those were easily managed. Keeping his back to his first lieutenant, Voldemort allowed the shaking appendage to graze his face. Fine stubble ran along a strong jawline, scraping and catching against the whorls of his fingertips. Keeping contact, his fingers moved upward, over his cheekbones to his forehead, feeling the hair of eyebrows, before finally touching his nose.

Turning just so, he spied Bella's reaction in the mirror nearby. Wide, dark eyes gazed with adoration at his new - old - form, her stare caressing over his shoulders and face like the kiss of a breeze. He smiled at her reflection, a slight yet terribly devastating sight, and the woman shivered. He was sure she would be soaking the expensive lace knickers she always wore if he were of the mind to check. Maybe once upon a time, when she was younger and less ravaged by her stint in Azkaban, less damaged by insanity and time. Now, though, well, she had a way of making his skin crawl with her devotion and outright sexual advances. In the back of his mind, he thanked whatever magic had been at work that he had not returned in a younger form, as he was certain Bella would not be above such scruples, so predatory her gaze was even now.

Unfortunate, really, for she still was an attractive woman, despite the gauntness of her figure and poor dental hygiene in the prison. 'Thank Salazar for dental potions,' he thought, watching her as she ran her tongue over her teeth where she stood, eyes on his disrobed arse.

 _Wild hair and keen eyes_

She certainly had those in spades, her hair a tangle of uncombed and unwashed kinks, her eyes _very_ keenly attentive to his various changes. Turning around fully, he stepped toward her, his naked form only now feeling the chill from the open window.

"It has worked, my Lord," the willowy witch gasped in reverence and arousal, eyes watching his member as it swayed with each step.

'Seriously? Note to self, Bellatrix needs a hobby… or a toy.' Voldemort stifled an audible snort thinking of his most loyal follower chewing a bone like the dog she so often emulated in his presence.

"We have much work to do, Bellatrix," he stated to the unstable woman while he dressed himself with the clothes which had been set on a stool to the side. Her curls unbound themselves slightly with the force of her nods, forcing him to smother his amusement once more. She had no idea how truly low she had fallen, the once proud daughter of the House of Black. Oh how she had wished he would declare her his Lady, but no. Voldemort had known from the start of her service, she was not His.


	2. Chapter 2

Oh. Er. Hello. Here's this... thing. Updates for this seem to be nearly monthly, but it will really depend upon my muse. I'll be done with Busting Boulanger this month, as well, as the writer's block has abated. Nothing left to say here, so, er, enjoy.

Standard disclaimers apply. Trigger warnings in Chapter 1.

* * *

 _ **Present**_

"Mr. Riddle. I believe this is yours." A tiny girl, no more than possibly 18, held his top follower's hair in her little fist and, after dragging her some distance, was actually lifting the woman up slightly. Bellatrix wore a mein of feral irritation where she struggled, her mouth still gone, for lack of a better word, and the areas of her dress and skin visibly torn and skinned away where the girl had physically ripped her from where she was bound to the floor. By his observations, Miss Granger was at least a stone lighter than the older woman she held aloft like a prize, and had very little in the way of muscle mass due to, he assumed, living rough. Her voluminous curls were very nearly waving about her head with the force of magical power she was holding. Voldemort fought the urge to laugh outright as she bodily threw Bellatrix at his feet, as though she were unnecessary baggage.

To her credit, Bella didn't cry out when Miss Granger - _Hermione_ , he tested in his mind. While he disdained Shakespeare, he did so love a good Greek myth; they were often delightfully tragic - tore a full hunk of oily hair from her head as she did so. Instead, he found himself spelling Bellatrix in place on the floor next to him before the mad witch could launch herself at the chit. He took the time to examine the young woman further now that she was standing before him and not coiled in the embrace of agony. The chit in question smirked at the woman on the floor and dangled the bit of hair before setting it ablaze without a word. As she did so, the eyes which had been marred by Dark magic before were clear, showing a deep intellect and passion in their hazelnut depths. The reflection of the firelight from the wall sconces combined with her sheer malice toward Bellatrix made his cock twitch. Voldemort cleared his throat, drawing Miss Granger's - _Hermione's_ \- attention. The slow perusal of his form from toe to tip of his head didn't help his errant member's excitement.

"You look well." Her airily delivered comment broke his reverie, surprising a laugh from him. A little smile played on her naturally pouty lips, an intoxicating mix of innocent and saucy, especially with her hands folded together behind her. Draco hissed at her from the other room - "Granger!" - and she laughed, a throaty chuckle that tossed her head back. "Aww, Malfoy. I never knew you _cared!_ "

Voldemort couldn't contain the smile she evoked with her antics. Sure, she was playing up her instability a bit, but it was having the right effect on the ones observing them. Leaning to the side slightly and looking behind her, he hummed, noting Greyback's corpse. "Redecorating, are we?" Bella sucked in an aghast breath through her nose, cringing away from his leg where she had been leaning, hands and legs still stuck to the floor tightly.

Miss - Hermione sighed heavily, regretfully, and turned to regard the dead werewolf as well. "Did you know he wanted to ravage and rape me - not necessarily in that order?" This time it was Lucius who reacted, with a gasp and a muttered word about beasts and what they deserved. The girl snorted and, without a word, turned back into the drawing room and squatted before him, gently running a hand along the eldest Malfoy's cheekbone and down to his jaw. "In the Muggle world, Lord Malfoy, some dogs - the ones which are a risk to human safety, diseased ones that bite and snarl and can't be muzzled - are put down, terminated. Sometimes, it's done with medicine, sometimes with a Muggle weapon. And Greyback?" she continued, moving her head to regard the Dark Wizard still standing in the doorway. "Well, he was a _very bad dog._ "

Scabior whinged his discomfort from his place still stuck fast against the wall as it felt like a rib or two had snapped painfully with her forceful words, the Darkness within them inadvertently pressing him more intensely into the wall with every punctuated syllable. His Lord took notice, drawing the tiny witch's attention to her captive with a nod and a raised brow. Hermione twisted in her spot before Malfoy Senior to regard the Snatcher still held fast, seemingly just taking notice of him again. "Oh! My apologies, Mr. Scabior." With an almost laughable amount of chagrin and a wave of Bellatrix's wand, she loosened him, ignoring the groan he loosed when he bonelessly fell to the floor almost instantly after in favor of turning back to The Dark Lord.

"Not to be rude, but would there be a washroom available? Cleaning charms can only do so much, and we have quite a bit to discuss before The Order tries to break down those lovely wrought iron gates outside." The Dark Lord nodded to Narcissa's furtive glance toward him as a reply, her knees trembling when she stood, either from fear or from the length of time the woman had been forcibly knelt.

"This way, please, Miss Granger." With poise and grace, despite her terror at the events of the last fifteen minutes, Narcissa led the young witch out, both stopping only to curtsey before The Dark Lord.

"You have a lovely home, Lady Malfoy. I'm assuming these archways are original to the Manor?" She could be heard asking the elder witch as they walked off, eliciting a snort and muttered "Swot" from the younger Malfoy still knelt.

As the sound of their steps faded away, Voldemort regarded his remaining followers. "Lucius, Draco, come with me. Bella, Scabior-" He paused to grimace at Greyback's corpse, "Clean this mess up. It's terribly rude to leave rubbish lying about when one is a guest."

The two blonds stood with effort, bowing slightly before Voldemort and joining Him at his side. Scabior still sat upon the ground, somewhat dazed, but bowed his head nonetheless, but Bellatrix. He fought a sigh at her hurt pout, her thoughts screaming all too clearly her jealousy and petulance at being tasked with such a thing. "Bellatrix. You will do as you are told." Voldemort gestured to the two Malfoys, all three men turning to walk down the opulent hall toward Lucius's study.

"B-but my Lord-" her whine became a scream behind him with a wave of his hand, his silent use of the Cruciatus reminding her of her place in the pecking order.

* * *

"Lady Malfoy-" Hermione began. The witch in question had been driving her spare for the last five minutes with her monosyllabic answers. Big deal, she gutted a werewolf in the informal drawing room. It's not like she re-enacted the Ukrainian Vampyr Revel of 1510. Jesus Christ on a cracker.

Two-toned hair continued to fall from what had probably been a sleekly styled half updo when her guide twitched at Hermione's voice. This was going to get old. Very old, very quickly. Time for damage control. Sighing, Hermione tried a different tactic as they turned down another hall.

"I can't apologize for Greyback, Lady Malfoy. No one should have to endure what he wanted. No witch nor woman." Finally, the older witch stopped and twisted to regard her new charge. Hermione could see the wheels turning behind Narcissa's ice blue eyes.

"Miss Granger," she spoke with finality, voice quiet yet firm. "I am not upset about Greyback." With nothing more, she faced forward again, but now waited until Hermione was beside her to begin walking again. Hermione could feel Narcissa watching her from her periphery.

"Was it the vintage Mosstone rug? I have to be honest, the thing was hideous anyway." The matriarch beside Hermione snorted in surprised amusement at her.

"No, it wasn't the rug, though I do agree. Thank Lucius' mother for that." Narcissa replied with a wry smirk, leading Hermione around another corner and directing her to a set of opened cherry-stained doors. Following her in, the svelte woman spelled the room into light, showcasing an airy sitting room, walls coated a serene creme colour. The seating itself was a relaxed floral pattern of muted earth tones while the rest of the furniture was either of marble or the same red toned wood as the doors. "You'll find a bathing room through there," Narcissa waved her hand absently toward what Hermione could now see was an equally uplifting and comfortable bedroom.

Hermione nodded at the witch in thanks and disappeared into the conjoined area. Behind her, she heard Narcissa call for an elf - "Tidbit!" - and request tea service, but she tuned the elf's response out upon finding the washroom. She had no idea how long she had let her astonished gaze linger upon the fixtures. The tub was what truly drew her focus, a large piece carved from what looked like a single piece of quartz, but Narcissa's voice behind her woke her from her reverie, the butt of Bellatrix's former wand pressed into her palm at the fright.

"My apologies, Miss Granger. I had no intention of sneaking upon you." Moving past Hermione in the doorway, Narcissa placed a set of linens on the counter. Moments later, pots and glass bottles of various toiletries were presented and the water was running in the quartz tub while Hermione tried to restrain her urge to clap and skip. After months of intermittent baths in freezing streams, the sheer prospect of luxuriating in warm water with actual soap was exciting.

The normally taciturn woman had noticed Hermione's stifled exuberance, concern and pity warring in her features. In the span of a blink, Narcissa's face was wiped clean, but she still reached a hand out to the younger woman, taking stock of her physical state. The instinct to mother was strong, it seemed, as the lady of the house clucked her tongue at the bruise along Hermione's temple and the wound Bella had inflicted upon her neck.

"I know that dealings with my family haven't been easy in the past," she began with a twist of her perfectly painted mouth. 'Understatement,' Hermione thought to herself with a mental snort. "But - Miss Granger, I -"

"Hermione."

Narcissa sputtered momentarily at Hermione's interruption. "Pardon?"

"I know you mean me no harm, ma'am, so please, call me Hermione, if it pleases you, Lady Malfoy." Hermione's energy was starting to wane and she was tired. Not just physically, from the hunt and the torture, but mentally and emotionally exhausted. Being called so formally on top of it all honestly made her want to stomp her foot and have a tantrum like a spoiled brat. After everything, she thought she deserved to just… relax.

"Narcissa, then. Or Cissy. I prefer Cissy." It seemed both women had had a long night, the toll of the events mixed with the lightly scented air finally loosening both their tongues. "In any case, _Hermione_ , I am here if you need to talk." Cissy searched Hermione's eyes for a moment before nodding and moving to leave the room.

* * *

"Lady - er - Cissy?" The girl nearly whispered as she walked through the threshold toward the sitting room again, stopping Cissy in her tracks. "Could you - what I mean to say is -" Hermione's voice trailed off when Cissy turned back to her.

This time, it was clear the evening had been too much for the young witch. Her body sagged down onto the edge of the tub, eyes filling with frustrated tears. Small hands were white-knuckled in her lap, and shudders wracked through her.

"You don't want to be alone?" Cissy asked after allowing Hermione a moment to collect herself. When the girl nodded, turning lost and grateful eyes upon her, her heart hurt. "Well, let's get you a change of clothes, first, then."

She heard the faint clinking of dishware from the next room over. Good, Tidbit had returned. Turning off the tap, Narcissa cast a stasis charm over the tub to keep the water warm and held down a hand to the witch still sat on the quartz edge. To her surprise, the girl didn't hesitate to take it. She had never knowingly and willingly touched a mudblood before but even she knew their hands shouldn't be this skeletal nor their skin so weather-worn, no matter the magicless beasts her sister said they were. "Come now, I've had tea service delivered and you, Hermione, need more appropriate clothing. A respectable witch does not traipse about in rags, now does she?" Warmth bloom at the wry smile her charge replied with.

The walk from the bath to the table where tea had been placed was short, though interesting in its own way. Hermione had stumbled one quarter of the way there, her body finally succumbing to the lowered adrenalin and the aftermath of the Cruciatus her sister had place the doe-eyed girl under not an hour previous.

"I understand why Draco loves you so much," the girl had said. Narcissa had turned her head to regard her companion in unconcealed shock. Before she could say a word, however, Hermione had continued. "He would always say he was going to tattle to Lord Malfoy, but it was _your_ post in the Great Hall to make his eyes light up, even if the owl only carried a letter. You're a good mum." Narcissa had no words, so she just nodded her thanks and continued to the sitting room and the blessed Darjeeling within.

* * *

"Draco, tell me about Miss Granger."

As the scion of the House of Malfoy, certain requirements existed for him, academic excellence in particular. A stupid Malfoy was a dead Malfoy - or a broke one, which was almost worse if Grandfather Abraxas' portrait was to be believed. Being second in his year, Draco was not a stupid Malfoy.

"Does my Lord wish to know the facts, or my thoughts?" He had to tread carefully now that the unbearable know-it-all had gone and made herself interesting. When He asked for both, however, Draco could have been bowled over by a slight breeze. The Dark Lord gestured to the seating, an anomaly in their usual dealings with the resurrected man.

"Granger is…" Draco searched for the words while his father wandered their way, tumblers and a bottle of scotch in his hands.

"She is top of Draco's year. Impressive considering her background," Lucius cut in while handing their Lord his own glass, two fingers of liquid the same shade as Granger's hair and eyes inside.

"Loyal, opinionated, well-educated, an exceptional caster - even on the train before Sorting, I hear she was performing spells." Draco added. Taking a moment to prepare his own drink, he continued. "Not precisely the quintessential Gryffindor. She was nearly a hatstall, as I recall, but it was in the weeks after Sorting where I began to question her placement."

His Lord raised a brow at Draco's statement. "She was quite disliked, my Lord. If she wasn't correcting other students in classes, she was making a spectacle of herself in answering every question from the professors and writing whole dissertations for assignments which otherwise only required a foot of parchment to answer succinctly. Potter and his little redheaded pet Weasel even found her… enthusiasm and verve distasteful."

"What changed?" From Draco's surface thoughts, Voldemort was already certain he knew, but knowledge without perspective was nigh useless. He had more than just gathering intelligence to gain from this conversation, and knowing the youngest Malfoy's feelings on the witch upstairs would only serve to solidify his aims.

Already, Draco was relaxing with the minute amount of spirits working through his system, but it was enough to loosen his tongue. After enjoying the final sip of his drink, the teenaged blond stated with aplomb, "A troll in the dungeons."

"Ah, yes. Quirrell's attempt at a diversion." It was a struggle to maintain his staid façade as he skimmed Draco's mind and saw the fracas the bumbling DADA professor had caused before the children had been sent off to their dormitories. _What an idiot._

"It is merely rumor, but apparently Granger, Potter, and Weasley sought out the troll rather than going back to Gryffindor Tower," Draco mused, lethargic and content with his small buzz.

"Actually, I was crying in the loo when the troll came in," the quiet voice at the door corrected. All three men turned in their seats to regard her as she walked in, Narcissa standing close by. "We didn't go looking for it. It walked in and found me exiting a stall. Do you mind?" Hermione gestured to the empty tumblers on the small table nearby, grabbing two when no one objected and making her way over to the assembly with the Malfoy matriarch.

While both Malfoy men were seated on a settee before their Lord, she chose to station herself and Narcissa on the one next to Him. After pouring a finger for both herself and Narcissa - "Not too much, darling, we've only just had tea and you need some rest." - Hermione tucked her feet beneath her where she sat, sipping daintily.

"Balvenie?" She asked of Lucius, whose brows raised as he nodded. "Very nice. My father swore by Laphroaig, but I never enjoyed the peat of it for the price." Finally turning her attention to the Dark wizard sat in the chair beside her, she met his piercing dark eyes unflinching. "So, what else would you like to know?"

* * *

He was using Legilimency on her. Logically she knew Riddle would do so, but she thought he would've been more subtle. Nope. Hermione could actually feel his invasion like a tickle in her brain - a very strange feeling to be certain. Unlike her infrequent meetings with Dumbledore, however, she felt no need to hide the truth of what she spoke from him.

"-on a mission to find your horcruxes." Oh fuck. His grey-blue eyes blazed before darkening an alarming amount.

"Say that again?" Narcissa was the only person who reacted physically, pressing her back into the cushion behind her. Across from Hermione, Lucius and Draco both wore a mask of indifference, but Lucius' eyes were tight at their edges and Draco's jaw was twitching. Hermione licked her lips, looking back at The Dark Lord as calmly as she could.

"Dumbledore set us up on a mission to find your horcruxes." Silence reigned over the room for minutes after like a mad king, oppressive and unsettling. Riddle swirled the remnants of his drink in his tumbler, handsome face relaxed but expressionless. Without warning, he stood and his glass hit the fireplace mantle, shattering itself and the tense quiet which had been suffocating the other occupants.

"How many?" Riddle's voice was low enough to resemble tyres upon gravel where he stood with his back to them, but the implication of his question was clear.

"Well… the diary was destroyed back in Second Year, and Dumbledore destroyed the ring…" To her credit, Hermione's voice stayed steady. Riddle waved his hand in the air signalling her to continue. "The locket-" she croaked. "We- Ron destroyed the locket shortly before we were apprehended. Nothing else has been found, to my knowledge. I would assume, though, that the boys know something is in the LeStrange vault by how Bellatrix was screaming her tits off about it." She whooshed the last bit out in one breath and sat back, preparing for every possible reaction she could reason.

Before he could reply, Bellatrix entered without knocking. For just one terrible moment, Hermione pitied the new arrival, as The Dark Lord had been handed a whipping post in her untimely and rude arrival. "My Lord-"

"Crucio."


	3. Chapter 3

As she answered his questions regarding her academic standing and history, The Dark Lord allowed himself to listen with half an ear while his consciousness wandered in and out of the corridors of her memory. Her mind was laid out before him in a most interesting fashion; a mixture of decrepit riverside warehouse, grandiose museum, and, amusingly enough, an old church complete with belfry. Walking up yet another spiralling staircase, this one rickety wood, he opened what would have otherwise looked like the door of a little girl's bedroom but for the congealed liquid laying tacky from beneath it. At once, he was walking into the memory of a sunlit kitchen.

" _Mummuh, what's that?"_

 _The woman, he would have assumed it was her mother by the finer details even if the tiny voice hadn't addressed her, jumped at her place on the step stool where she was placing canned goods in the overhead cupboard. Hermione lay in the strong yet feminine curve of her jaw, and the fine creases between both womens' brows which all too often formed in passionate studiousness. Their surprised reactions were even similar, the frozen pause of someone who had, frankly, had to survive. The elder Granger female stared at her daughter for a moment, subtly gaining her breath and assessing the girl, dropped her eyes a moment later to the spot her daughter was staring at._

 _Hermione herself was five "and five eighths" years old. Even at a young age, he noted that her attention to details was almost clinical, methodical. Her bright stare was fixated upon the incision scar on her mother's lower abdomen. Voldemort had to credit her mother for the younger Granger's bravery, because the woman simply swallowed visibly but quietly._

 _She spoke lowly but clearly. "It's a surgical scar. I had a procedure done, when you were born - so you could be born." Madam Granger cleared her throat, shooting Hermione's younger self the panicked look of prey just realizing how vulnerable it had made itself. "It's called a Cesarean. You were just over a month late, you see, and you hadn't wanted to come out yet. Eventually, it started to hurt Mummy-" she faltered as her child smiled savagely, her leg nearly twitching backward but for the edge of the countertop. "So - so the Doctor had to do a surgery because it would have started to hurt you, too. Mummy didn't want that. Mummy loves you." Mrs. Granger smiled tremulously, nearly pleading with the tiny girl._

 _Voldemort crouched beside the little Granger, watching her while she processed what she was being told. 'Mummy got hurt,' her thoughts echoed around him, briefly followed by her chirpy voice responding to her mother, happily smiling._

" _I like that story!" After Hermione had turned away and left the room, her mother finally sagged against the counter, sitting fully upon it, and crossed herself. With her head drooping with emotional exhaustion, the woman didn't notice the little flash of delighted teeth when her daughter regarded him from a nearby reflection._

' _Mummy tells the_ _ **best**_ _stories.'_

' _Oh?' He had never heard of a memory able to directly interact with a Legilimens, but the temptation to experiment was too great to ignore. Voldemort tugged his pants slightly at his thighs and crouched before the small girl now standing near what he assumed was the front door. 'And what are your favourite stories about?'_

 _Another alarmingly feral show of teeth was his answer accompanying an emphatic toss of curls while she shook her head. 'It's time for you to go, Mister. She is talking to you and my mummy says it's rude to ignore someone when they're speaking to you.' Young Hermione opened the door and he was bodily shoved out of the foyer by tiny invisible hands on his back._

'-your horcruxes." Her admission sharpened his focus after having been forcefully removed from her mind. As Hermione explained, he grew more irritated. Of fucking _course_ Dumbledore knew about them, but how? Worse yet, he couldn't punish her. She was being forthcoming with her information, from Order secrets to Potter's mission. This impotence did absolutely fuck-all for his already grated nerves.

"My Lord-" Bellatrix. Perfect. It would be on her head should the Boy Wonder find the shard of his soul stashed in her vault in the first place. With a wave of his hand, she was screaming in the doorway, a misshapen lump of well-deserved agony.

A delicate hand came to rest upon his forearm, breaking his cold gaze from the writhing puddle which was LeStrange. To Hermione's credit, she never once flinched when he turned his blazing eyes upon her, the crimson haze of his power overtaking the slate irises. "As much of a fan as I am of seeing her tortured to incoherence, you need her right now. She needs to be make a withdrawal from Gringott's, I believe?"

All three Malfoys watched the scene silently, knowing better than to say a word. Where Draco was openly astonished at the girl's audacity, however, Lucius was simply nodding his agreement and Narcissa's painted lips were thin tucked as they were between her teeth. With a sigh through his nose, Voldemort flicked his wrist toward Bella once more, ending her suffering.

His first lieutenant raised her dark wet eyes toward him, the sight of Hermione's hand gently grasping his arm making them narrow into slits while her breath escaped in heavy pants of anger. "Bellatrix," he began conversationally, as though he hadn't just cursed her within an inch of her already dodgy sanity. "In your… excitement earlier, you let sensitive information become known. You are needed at Gringott's as soon as they open for business in the morning. I suggest you recover quickly and ready yourself."

While Bellatrix struggled to stand where she had collapsed, Hermione's hand slipped away in a tantalizing yet unintentional caress, and she rose from her seat. With the same graceful curtsy she had given him earlier, Hermione walked over to the half-prone woman. Clearly without meaning to, Bella bodily flinched feeling her hands upon her back and shoulder. "Try to kill me later, LeStrange, but let me help you now," he heard her low murmur. Bellatrix's eyes met his own for just a moment before slipping toward the floor demurely and she nodded.

Another moment gone and not only Hermione and Bellatrix, but Narcissa were exiting the room with whispered deference. He turned back to regard the two generations of blond men seated before him. "I believe, gentlemen, we have much more to discuss now."

* * *

"Gerroff me, y' filthy mu'blood!" Bellatrix growled at the short witch who had curled her arm around the Dark witch's waist to help steady her. As she shoulder checked the girl, Narcissa swooped her arm in place of the one her mad sister had forcibly removed with the motion. "'M fine, Cissuh," she drawled thickly, nausea roiling her gut with every painful step and making every syllable slur almost drunkenly. Gods, this was a horrible feeling.

"No, Bella, you're really not." Her sister rolled those clear blue eyes and shot a look to the other female. "I swear she gets even _more_ stubborn after a Crucio. It's ludicrous." A snort from her other side had Bellatrix's jaw tensing.

"I can relate. Your sister is a strong witch, Cissy. She's not going to want anyone to see her in any state other than her top form, especially given the circumstances." The teenager opened the door to the Virgo Suite once more and ushered the two former Black witches in.

" _She_ c'n speak fer herself, Muddy." Bellatrix grumbled petulantly.

"Mmm," the mouthy bitch hummed back, tapping her chin while Narcissa helped her to the quartz tub in the bathing room. "But is she really saying anything?" The movement from her sister's surprised laugh had Bella retching pathetically into the commode.

"Tidbit?" Bellatrix vaguely registered the Mudblood calling Cissa's house elf in the other room, unsure if she had heard properly, but the pop not a moment later certainly caught her attention. "Madam LeStrange is in need of a light pain potion, a nerve draught, and another pot of that delicious Darjeeling wouldn't be unappreciated, as well. Maybe some light broth for her stomach?"

"Yes, Missy Miney!" Another pop signified Tidbit's exit and Bellatrix raised her head from where it dangled into the porcelain bowl while her stomach cramped.

"Re-really, Cissa?" She levelled the blonde woman with a disbelieving stare. "You have the h-house elves answer-answering to the m-m-Mudblood?" If her sister was uncomfortable with the question, she certainly didn't show it, nor did she offer more than a nonchalant shrug as an answer before the chit in question was sticking her head in the room.

"Cissy, Tidbit was kind enough to bring my bag and I found some anti-seize to put in her bathwater." While Bellatrix may hate the bitch, she had to admit the girl was polite enough to ignore her less than regal position at the foot of the toilet. Just the thought had her heaving again. When she finished this time, Bella noted the tub being filled and the scent of vanilla, sandalwood, and something vaguely floral filling the air.

In moments, Narcissa was hooking her arms under Bella's shoulders and helping her move to the edge of the quartz where she slumped. The girl was nowhere in sight, but she knew she would be back. Sure enough, the kinky-headed menace was coming through the door with a lightweight acromantula silk robe in one hand, her gaudy beaded purse hoisted over the other shoulder.

"Not one for fashion, Muddy?" Bellatrix sneered, hoping the girl would just… go away. Instead, she smirked in an alarmingly Malfoyesque manner and cocked a hip.

"At least I've got all my teeth, LeStrange." Before Bella could try to rush her in her own feeble state, the young abomination was addressing Narcissa once again.

* * *

"I've left a portrait on the bed, face down. I had forgotten he was in my bag, but-" Hermione paused, turning to the blonde. Ignoring the hateful stare from the woman on the tub edge, she continued. "Well, Headmaster Black may not be wholly loyal to anyone other than the Light. He was a Slytherin first, but… well, there's another portrait of him in the Headmaster's Office, and he didn't hesitate to give us information provided we made it worth his while."

"Aww, little Muddy. D-did you make old Phineas a h-happy portrait? Give him a s-s-show, did you?" Bella's snide tone insinuated and Hermione couldn't fight the redness she felt overtaking her own face. _Bitch._

"Bellatrix, stop it." Narcissa chastised her sister sharply. From her spot at the door, Hermione could see the stress at the corners of Cissy's eyes and in her brows, and she immediately wiped her face of emotion, entering the room fully. With care, she nimbly began unpacking the rest of her prepared concoctions from the purse onto the marble countertop, taking care not to jingle the vials as she knew Bellatrix would be feeling a migraine coming on, if she didn't have one already.

With her back turned, she heard the wisping fabric of Cissy's fine robes moving and the telltale splashing of water as LeStrange was helped into the healing waters of the tub. Cissy's hand gently touched her arm to signal her, and Hermione turned back, dittany and a headache phial in hand. Bellatrix hissed as the injuries she had sustained from Hermione earlier finally registered the warmth only to be cut off as her tremors began to ease.

Without a word, Narcissa left the room to take care of the portrait, and Hermione sunk onto the floor next to the tub in her place. She passed the headache potion over, making sure the label was clear, and said nothing when Bellatrix sniffed it before taking it with a toss of her matted hair.

"Why?" Hermione jumped slightly, cringing at her own reaction. She cleared her throat awkwardly before replying.

"'Why' what?" She busied her hands with a clean cloth, pouring a bit of dittany on it before reaching to dab it on a particularly inflamed rug burn Bella had upon her cheek from Voldemort's punishment. Amber eyes clashed with coal when Bella had tried to flinch away from her touch. Hermione sucked her teeth at the woman's ridiculousness before grasping her shoulder and forcing her closer, knowing the older witch was too weak to really fight her.

"Why-" Bella broke off with a frustrated sigh. "Everything. Mostly, just- ow! Fuck! Why are you helping me?" She finally grit her question out as the dittany hissed and healed the abrasion she hadn't known was just below her eye, the fumes making it water and drip.

"Honestly?" Hermione removed the cloth to view the skin beneath, now simply pink as new growth was accelerated. Moving onward, she motioned for Bella's hands, inwardly delighted when the usually unstable witch raised one for her to work on. "You're useless if you're dead, LeStrange. While you'd probably make a rather attractive Inferi, that wouldn't suit The Dark Lord at all."

"'An attractive-' Ugh! Smartass!" The woman in the tub let loose a surprised chuckle before she could stop herself, grasping the skin between her breasts when the motion ached.

"Better than being a dumbass." Taking Bella's other hand, she dabbed the cloth on the remainder of the torn skin on her palms. "Besides, it seems some of the lower ranks have the market cornered there, wouldn't you agree?" Again the lieutenant huffed a laugh, face screwing up in pain seconds later. The room fell silent once more while Hermione moved down to Bella's knees and repaired the skin there.

"A doe patronus," she said suddenly, making Bellatrix jump a bit and hiss when her muscles protested despite the effects of the anti-seize.

"What?" She whined slightly, her lower back all but screaming at her while she tried to make sense of Hermione's words. The girl now had her laying back, and was running water through her hair, taking care to work the remedy into the bald spot she had caused when she had torn Bella's hair out. Hermione said nothing for a bit, rinsing the dittany away and gently working shampoo through her charge's hair while she recounted the events in her head.

"The Sword? We found it, but not at Gringott's." Tilting Bellatrix's head back to rinse the soap out and making eye contact, Hermione continued. "A doe patronus found Harry and led him to it. We never went to your vault."

"I'm not going to apologize, Muddy."

"I don't expect you to, Bellatrix," she replied, the woman in the tub starting to grow slack-eyed as the combination of potions, relaxing sensations, and cessation of some of her pain started to sink into her consciousness. "You did your job, and you did it well. You just- you got carried away. That said, I have a few ideas to remedy the situation, if you're willing to listen."

"Do I have a choice?" Bella's voice had started to become groggy, and Hermione knew it was time for her to leave the bath. Standing, she dried her hands and retrieved the lightweight robe, knowing heavy fabric would irritate Bellatrix's abused nerves further.

"Not really, no, but my mother always told me manners were important."

"Ironic," Cissy's voice came from behind them at the door. "Considering she sounded like quite the uncouth harridan when we spoke earlier." Taking one look at her sister's rapidly relaxing figure in the tub, she smiled. "Time to get out, love, or you'll prune."

"Speaking of harridans," Bellatrix muttered, sharing an amused glance with Hermione before she could stop herself. Minutes later, the three women were comfortably seated in the sitting room, Bellatrix potioned to the gills, planning a trip to the bank.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Yanno, I wasn't super happy with this, but fiddling with it would make it worse, so here.

* * *

 _ **11 March 1990**_

Her father leaned back in his chair with a relieved groan, a small glass of amber liquid in hand. From her place on the floor between the sofa and coffee table, Hermione looked up at the clock. _7:30._

"It's time, Dad." His eyes crinkled at the edges as he smiled at her, gesturing to the telly nearby. Excited, she was already halfway to turning it on when her mother's voice piped up.

"It's Sunday. I don't think it's really approp-" Hermione twisted her torso to stare at her mother on the couch, her rear planting on the floor in disappointment.

"Please, Mum? If it becomes too much, I'll go draw in my room. I promise." Her mother nibbled her lip, scanning her daughter's face for signs of trouble. Shoulders drooping when she found none, her mother relented and _Bergerac_ was about five minutes in. Hermione scooted back to her sketchbook and pencils, sketching idly while watching the show.

Within another ten, even her mother was hooked to the story, concerns about content pushed aside. "Oh," the Granger Matriarch said absently, half her attention still on the scene. "Speaking of fathers-in-law, Hector sent you a letter today…" Deborah Grant caught her attention, then, and the rest of her parents' words tuned out as she sketched flyaway blonde hair and frightened blue eyes.

* * *

"I wish to enter my vault," her voice did not waver as she made direct eye contact with the Head Goblin behind the imposing desk. As the fearsome if small creature stared her down, she simply lifted her chin, tossing her hair from her eyes. Her guest huffed and struggled in her grasp, only pausing when a wand was pressed to her bony side. Travers' voice chimed up in her defense when the Goblin looked her over suspiciously, laughably ignoring the witch beginning to struggle again in her grip. She hissed in the chit's ear with a friendly smile, and the girl ceased moving once more.

"Madame LeStrange. Your associate seems rather-" the man to her side, an unknown Death Eater, began. With a glare at the Eastern European man, Bellatrix tightened her grip on the girl's neck, forearm flexing despite the hold seeming innocuous if not friendly with the way her thin limb was draped over the girl's shoulder.

"She's just shy, Despard. We're _pals,_ her and I." Bella smiled once again for the Goblin - who was _clearly_ fighting the urge to roll its eyes. It motioned for Travers to move along with an associate, curling its wide upper lip at the Dark witch.

' _Fucking Goblins_.'

* * *

Bellatrix fairly well slumped into the cushions of her chair, kicking one leg over the other and plopping her stocking-clad feet on the table, exhaustion and a healthy dose of potions and tonics running through her system. An iridescent pink polish could been seen through the fabric at her toes, prompting Hermione to fight a laugh and look to her plate instead. Seeing the woman so dressed down and relaxed was a bit of a mindfuck, if Hermione didn't mind saying. That said, it was to her immense relief that Bellatrix wasn't actively trying to kill her. It made planning _so_ much easier.

Besides, the woman was as brilliant as she was clinically insane. That was damn useful, even if she was obnoxious. It was best to play the game, and maybe ingratiate herself to the bitch.

"You, Muddy, look like someone with a plan."

Hermione sipped at her tea, the heat scalding her tongue in a painfully satisfying manner. She couldn't afford to lose her temper over LeStrange's oddly affection-tinted nickname. "Careful, Bella. I might start thinking you've got a crush, the way you call me so sweetly." Another bolt of satisfaction zipped through her when the woman in question flushed, colour appearing high on her cheekbones while she glared at Hermione's smugly smiling face. ' _So it's like that?'_

If she didn't need the woman for three out of four of her plans, she'd have cursed her stupid by now, but Bellatrix's reaction amused her and, well, she was _**so**_ fucking useful. To know that, even despite her blood, there was a strong likelihood Bellatrix was attracted to her only furthered her value to Hermione.

' _Might as well throw her a bone.'_

"Besides, I'm likely half-blooded," Hermione commented nonchalantly a few beats later. Narcissa choked on the bite of jam-coated biscuit she had taken. With gentle pats to the witch's back, Hermione explained. Bella's feet left the table, her body twisting in her chair, and she slouched forward slightly in interest, as elegantly as she could while being drugged to the teeth. "My father somehow obliviated me. Unless he is an incredibly late bloomer, he's a wizard. In any case, it changes nothing. Now about Gringotts…"

* * *

The girl wriggled again while the Goblin stared, hand coming up to clasp Bellatrix's arm for purchase… or air. The mysterious Death Eater nearby made a sound and Bella whipped her head to regard him while she tutted in her captive's ear. "Ohh, Muddy's getting impatient?" She sucked her teeth after a moment, impatient, not breaking her staredown with her unintentional male companion when she addressed the Goblin. "Now, Goblin."

The creature sighed and nodded, calling forward another Goblin to escort them to the vault as he had for Travers moments earlier. Releasing her grip suddenly, her guest fell to the floor. Without missing a beat, Bella gripped the arm which had flailed in the air upon the girl's descent, dragging her behind herself and the goblin escorting them while the bitch struggled to stand. The man near her elbow stifled a growl when she fairly well yanked the woman's arm out of her socket, yanking her upright, eliciting a whimper of pain. A draft passed by them as the three moved briskly to the vault cart.

Under the guise of securing her hostage and instilling just a bit more terror for the fun of it, Bellatrix whispered to the girl. "Harry is under his cloak. That man is Ron." Her hostage released a convincing sob as though threatened, and nodded hastily.

* * *

"I would put money on the boys attempting to get in your vault soon, Bellatrix." Running a hand over her own wayward curls, Hermione sighed.

"Are they really that dense, or just insane?" Narcissa's voice was rife with disbelief, and Hermione found herself without an answer. In the third seat, Bella nibbled at a pastry and considered their options. She, personally, hoped it was both.

"Both," Hermione replied with a dismissive shrug. "They're Gryffindors." Her partners-in-crime stifled a collective shudder and she giggled into her tea.

* * *

"In you go, Mudblood," the wild-eyed lieutenant crooned, giving no other warning before nearly tossing the girl into the cart with a cackle. The sharp exhalation of breath from empty space was covered as Hermione hissed and rubbed her side. Wooden carts were almost as unforgiving as a Crucio.

The unknown man - Despard, he had said in Diagon Alley - climbed in next, seating himself between where Bellatrix would have been seated and where she had shoved Hermione. Ha. Acting as a barrier, no doubt.

"'Mione?" Despard leaned over her, barely uttering the syllables and eyeing the other witch in the cart with a careful gaze. The younger witch beside him shot her head up in shock.

"R-ron?" her voice was equally hushed, rushing through her teeth like a gasp while she rubbed her sore side for good measure. The wizard in question flashed a hint of teeth in a grin. "Is - Harry-" she whispered back, her amber eyes widening when a hand grasped her shoulder out of thin air.

Ahead, the runoff from a waterfall appeared over the track, and Hermione smiled sublimely. Things were about to get _fun_.

* * *

"They won't be able to resist trying to rescue me if they see an opportunity." Bellatrix barked a laugh at Hermione's words, leaning over to refill her teacup.

"So are you fucking them both, then, Granger?"

"Bella!" Narcissa's scandalized voice was drowned out by Hermione's own laughter. The half-blonde which just tutted at the other two witches. ' _Like a house on fire.'_

"Absolutely not. Why, jealous, _Bellatrix_?" Hermione teased the last syllables from between her lips like a dirty secret, highly enjoying the planning session indeed when the elder with blushed again.

"I'm the brains of the operation, in all seriousness. I do all the researching, all the magic which keeps them hidden, cook all the food, you name it."

Narcissa wore her irritation like a hat. "You're their mother." It caught Hermione off guard, actually, to have had someone else see what she had. Her mouth wrinkled downward in a frown to match Draco's mum's and she nodded.

* * *

"You need to go-" she began frantically, only to be cut off by the redhead drawing out his wand to brandish it at the woman in the front of the cart.

"We'll get you out, 'Mione," Desp- no, _Ron's_ voice said at her side, sliding his upper body over her a bit more as the cart reached the Thief's Downfall, preparing himself as best he could. Immediately, his face and hair began morphing, his back falling into her with the shock of the sensation, pushing her back into Harry who was looking back at her with wide, frightened eyes.

She winked and her mouth widened with a manic grin while she wrapped an arm around Ron's back to grip his torso, using her right hand to point her wand at his head. "Stupify." Immediately, the ginger was limp in her arms and her gnarled wand was pointing at him. "Incarcerous."

Familiar footsteps shuffling along the floor of the cart had his heart pounding firmly in his chest, painfully thudding in dread. "Hi, Harry," Hermione popped into view above him. Her brown waves and curls dangling close enough to his face that he caught the scent of them while they stared at one another. "I'm gonna need you to hang out for a minute, okay?"

"Hermi-" His vision went black.

"My vault's this way, Granger," Bellatrix said from her place next to the Goblin, who was gathering a set of clankers in his knobby fists. With a nod, Hermione joined her, linking elbows.

"You're going to love the curse I used," Bellatrix stated while they walked away, completely ignorant of the disgruntled creature unfurling himself from the cloak. He took a look at the two unconscious teenaged wizards bound in ropes and sighed.

* * *

"But the smell!" Hermione protested, perusing the LeStrange tomes for anything of interest. "If you think about it, the vault is hermetically sealed with magic, so if that door is closed, whatever is in here is going to _stay_ in here." She twisted to look at Bella who was standing on a ladder nearby with a growing look of horror.

"Gringotts has protections in place should a thief meet their demise in a family vault," piped up the Goblin at the door. Both women stared dumbly at the other.

"Good to know," Hermione replied with a shrug, regarding the small library before her once more. "How is the-"

"Fed to the dragon."

She nodded, feeling the contemptuous stare being levelled at her back by their guide. "Ah. Efficient. Bella, could I borrow this?" While she ran her eyes over the rows again for something else, _Semita Animarum_ waved in the air for her companion's regard, receiving a distracted affirmative.

Hermione looked over from her quest to see the other woman placing an inverted satchel upon her hand. Before Bella could reach out and grasp the cup, however, a scuffle outside drew their attention. The Goblin at the door fell a moment later.

"Hominem Revelio!" Hermione cast, waving her wand toward the door. Nothing, yet. "Bella, grab it and let's go." With a flick of her wrist and nary a mutter, she had her new book shrunken and in her purse. Gripping her skirt with her other hand, Hermione jumped down from her stool, avoiding the galleons nearby.

"Expelli-" Harry's voice sounded from just outside the vault, only to be cut off by her hasty feint.

"Maxime Tacere!" Hermione sliced her wand through the air, silencing the bespectacled boy. "Vincula Multis!" His limbs snapped tightly to his body, squeezing close as invisible bands trapped him.

Beside her, Bella appeared, holding up the bag with the cup. Her dark eyes looked over Hermione's handiwork and she smirked. "I'm beginning to think you have a thing for tying people up. You really _are_ a filthy little-"

"This crush of yours is getting out of hand, LeStrange." Hermione grumbled, moving away from the witch with a roll of her eyes. "We're wasting time. Besides, if Harry was free, that means Ron likely is or will be soon. We need to be cautious."

Hermione kept point while they were leaving, grabbing up the clankers from the unconscious bank employee at the door. Behind her, Harry levitated, bonds now visible in the form of coils of rope, Bellatrix following with her wand trained on him. The only warning they had was the jingle of coins from within the vault before the red het of a hex was meeting Bellatrix's back.

Harry dropped heavily while the Dark witch spun to meet the opponent's next spell. She redirected a weak Bombarda toward a pile of galleons at the now visible redhead's feet, cackling when he realized the coins were not only doubling, but burning as they did so. Her laugh died in her throat, however, when the Weasley boy charged her way without warning, gripping Bella in a clothesline maneuver and dragging her out the door. Her breath knocked from her even further when he pushed Bellatrix against the wall by her throat to stab his wand against her head.

"Let her go, Ronald." Hermione stood nearby, Harry's body still bound where he had fallen on the ground. Her steady gaze met his own clear blue, her voice calm and gentle. "Ron, what are you going to do? Look at it from every angle." Hermione sidled closer, pausing only when Ron's wand pressed against Bellatrix's cheek hard enough for the woman to hiss.

"Should kill her," he replied with a forced idleness to his voice. "Who'd miss her, the barmy cunt?" The woman in his grasp tutted her tongue in offense.

"But could you really? _Could_ you kill her?" Hermione shifted closer again, able to run her hands along Ron's shoulder in the same soothing motion she had when they would talk in the common room. Despite their many disagreements, they had had a good friendship, and Ron remembered that. He was lowering his wand away from Bella's cheek when she noticed the woman giving her eye signals. Hermione turned her attention to the side to see Griphook, of all Goblins, undoing the bonds holding Harry, who had come to.

' _ **Fucking**_ _**Goblins.**_ '

Harry groaned as he stood, raising a hand to rub at the back of his head. While Ron's attention was diverted, Hermione shoulder-checked him, hauling the Death Eater out of his grasp - and the horcrux with her.

"Bála Prostasías!" The brunette witch extended her arm in a circle above she and Bella, the shimmer of magic forming a sphere around the two almost instantly. The darker haired witch steadied her breathing, the wizards before her training their wands on the two witches backing toward the cart. "You good, LeStrange?"

Bella nodded, keeping her eyes on Potter and his ginger pet. Weasley had backed himself to Potter, who was muttering and glaring at Granger, wand grasped with white knuckles. Weasley was likely asking the same question of Potter, if the Boy Wonder's intermittent, terse nods were any indication. Ginger put a hand to the back of the Speccy One's head, getting a wince out of the other wizard, and pulled away red-tinged fingers.

"Muffliato," Hermione whispered next to her, followed by a short downward flick - right to left - and a small circling of the tip within the centre. "Ravne Usne. Ron can read lips," she said to Bellatrix's mocking eyebrow. "Now he can't. Anyway," she sighed heavily, pulling a large breath in deeply and holding it before letting it go. "He's probably trying to convince Harry that escape is their best option. Their best bet would be to duel us to distraction and try to go back the way they came, but-"

A discordant jangling from just past Harry and Ron drew their attention. "Now!" Ron belted, and both wizards took off toward Griphook, who stood by the forgotten dragon causing a ruckus with the clangers. Bellatrix lunged out from within the confines of Hermione's shield to send curse after curse at the wizards while they climbed onto the back of a scarred, nearly wild dragon. The beast reared back and bucked, breaking its chains, and shot a blast of fire in an arc around the chamber. With a mighty roar, it bent, flapping once, twice, and crashed through the stonework with two wizards as passengers.

"Fucking Goblins," Hermione muttered petulantly, casting a nonverbal cooling charm to reduce some of the sting from her heat-sensitized skin. She held a hand out to Bellatrix, helping the elder woman stand and survey the damages.

"Well, we technically got what we came for, so… mission accomplished?" Her voice, falsely upbeat, seemed to make Bella's annoyance worse. She placed an arm around her slim shoulders, brushing Bellatrix's kinky black strands from her face. "I'd miss you, even if you _are_ a barmy cunt."

With a sniff, Bella firmed her jaw patting Hermione's hand and gripping the bag tightly in her fist. Placing her wand tip against the Dark Mark, they made their way back to the Manor.


	5. Chapter 5

Standard disclaimers and trigger warnings apply.

* * *

Dragonhide boots fell in oddly soft steps upon the pristine marble floor of the Malfoy Manor foyer as Severus Snape paced awaiting his appointment with his Lord. The owl sent that morning had been brief, not a comfort considering the Dark wizard's changeable temperament, yet he had noted certain inconsistencies which made him wonder. In the last few months, Severus had noticed a change in not only the communiques from his Master, but in the tone of the murmurs from within the Inner Circle, as well. He himself hadn't met with his Lord in months, but he knew others had and it chafed to think the Dark Lord's trust in him might be waning.

A manor elf popped in but scant moments later, nodding at him and ushering him along.

"Master of Potions follows Tulip."

Rather than one of the smaller lounges off the Main Hall, as was his Lord's desire upon His rebirth, Tulip began to walk her lanky charge down a service hall adjacent. Great, the new elf was going to get him Crucioed.

"Tulip is knowing where she is being, Master of Potions," her tinny voice broke the silence. Brows drawn, he glanced down at the service elf, whose saucer eyes were staring back evenly. Severus opened his mouth to reply when a boisterous yet deeply feminine laugh followed by low conversation passed by a nearby staff door. Familiarity tickled him, itching his brain, and his steps faltered behind the elf.

Tulip glanced at him over her bony uniformed shoulder with something like sympathy and exasperation. "Master of Potions is following Tulip." The twist of her mouth brooked no argument, so Severus rolled his eyes and nodded, stepping back behind the elf silently. Though being in his thoughts had made the trek through the passage seem longer, Tulip led him down another hall and through one more door in but moments, bringing him out into the Solarium.

"Master of Potions is waiting here. Posey is having re-fresh-ments-" he hid a smile as the creature sounded out the word carefully, puffing her shoulders up proudly upon success- "sent in small times."

"Thank you, Tulip," he replied, the elf popping away before Severus could say anything further. He shrugged internally, already making notes of the inconsistencies he'd walked into. The elf was new, clean, obviously being educated, and uniformed in high quality linen, an embroidered 'M' just above the elegant stitching of her name sewn into the fabric on her chest. While Narcissa generally kept a strict household, the Malfoy elves had never worn anything of such quality.

Tulip hadn't been cheeky, but something about her behavior had been disconcerting nonetheless. She had seemed - he couldn't say, but, suspicious, maybe? Or untrusting. Either way, Severus was curious about the laugh he had heard and why the elf had been looking at him like she knew a terrible thing and… and it would ruin him.

"Ahh, Severus!" His Lord's voice startled him from his thoughts as Severus was gazing idly in the direction of Narcissa's orchard through a large window. The shock of being so soundly interrupted accompanied by his Lord's _changes_ had the dour man pausing somewhere between a kneel and a crouch, his jaw hanging open and eyes wide. A creak of his overly bent knee sent Severus crashing to the floor in an ungainly heap with an instinctive, loud curse.

Low, amused chuckling wove into his ears while he righted himself into perfect reverence. Severus' mind raced with the possibilities surrounding the Dark Lord's restored visage, eyeing the tips of the leather shoes some feet away for the subtle hint of a charm, though he doubted his Lord would be so messy.

"Oh, stand up already," His Lord half-snapped at Severus, fondness in the command, which did absolutely _fuck-all_ for Severus' nerves. "At first, the kowtowing was amusing, a sort of 'watch the pretentious inbreds scrape at my word,' but Jesus. No, Severus, don't kneel to me again. I can only imagine Albus doesn't grant you much comfort these days. Take it where you can."

It was true, the old Headmaster hadn't. Albus' demanding nature was made even more so by the news that Hermione Granger - or someone Polyjuiced as her, as the two dunderheads who had been there _against orders_ hadn't bothered to do anything in order to verify her identity. Anyone who had been within ten yards of the girl knew she shed hair like a husky, so it was not outside the realm of possibility - had worked with Bellatrix LeStrange to move an item of 'unknown value.'

 _Coming up from the pensieve, Albus turned to Severus, grasping his marked arm harshly. "It is imperative we find out whether or not that is, in fact, Miss Granger. As it was shown by Madam LeStrange, the girl is remarkably easy to imitate, considering neither Misters Potter nor Weasley were aware anything was amiss." Releasing the professor, Albus walked with purpose to his desk, eyes searching the surface in a frenzy._

" _I take it I have a task, then?" The tired tone of the Potions Professor had Dumbledore's eyes raising to regard the lanky man. Whatever sympathy he had for the man before him closed off quickly when his wandering fingers grazed what he was searching for. Dropping his eyes once again, Albus hefted a journal of sorts, setting it on the desk before the younger wizard._

" _Find out what happened to Miss Granger, my boy," His gravel-tinted tone tugged at Severus' vow, hand twitching while it reached for the book. 'A Statistical Analysis of Magical Births' by a Heinrich Hauer faced up at him. Flipping through, he found the next pages contained handwritten accounts, patient records, and more studies all done by or including the same man. "If you should find any information," his employer began again, blue eyes turning almost navy in their gravity, "do let me know immediately."_

" _You're not curious about the purpose of their visit to Gringott's?" The old man was keeping secrets, Severus felt it in his gut like a terrible weight. Albus removed his glasses, wiping them on his robes as he levelled his eyes at his spy._

" _If that was, indeed, Miss Granger, we have far bigger problems than the contents of the LeStrange vault."_

Dumbledore was suspicious of Miss Granger, not just the circumstances regarding her capture, but most recently at Gringott's. The questions had been piling up and nagging at him for the last two days, still chafing even as he stood before his first Master. "You are unsettled," the restored visage of his Lord was pulled into curiosity. If Severus didn't know the Dark Lord better, he'd have said concern was laying behind the inquisitive stare and slight tilt of His head, somewhere in the slight wrinkle of his furrowed brow and tightening of the muscles at the corners of his lips.

Tucking his long hair behind an ear, Severus silently applauded the Dark wizard before him. 'Good show, old boy,' he thought to himself. It seemed one benefit to whatever Voldemort had done to himself to restore his looks was to be found in conveying the illusion of genuine human emotion. Albus barely even acted like Severus was human these days, rather addressing him in the manner of a trained dog half the time.

"Albus is a fool, Severus, you know this. Now, come sit, 'old boy,' we have much to discuss." His Lord rolled his eyes at the quickly paling spy, turning away to sit in a chair nearby. The clink of his spoon as he stirred his prepared tea grated in the otherwise silent room. Taking the moment to recollect himself, Severus joined the other wizard, sitting alert in his seat and subtly casting detection charms on his tea. Tea which dribbled slightly over the rim when his Lord chuckled and Severus' hand jerked. "I've not been _that_ poor of a host, have I?"

Severus flinched, immediately locking away the phantom pains of former teas with his Lord behind his Occlumency walls before they could fully surface.

* * *

" _...is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus._

 _Holy Mary,_

 _Pray for us sinners now_

 _And in the hour of death,_

 _Amen."_

 _Her mother's voice had distracted Hermione from the reading she was doing. Setting her note-riddled copy of 'The Metamorphosis' to the side, Hermione slipped from beneath her plush periwinkle blue comforter to pad quietly across her carpeted floor. The coarse synthetic fibers itched her bare feet, adding to the irritation she felt at her work being interrupted. Especially by her mother, of all people._

 _The seven year old slinked through her door, allowing the wood to swing slightly on the old hinges until the moment just before they usually let out a joint creak. Metering the breath she exhaled in relief when, reliably, the worn metal stayed quiet, Hermione let her eyes adjust to the dark hall. Two doors down, the door to her mother's craft room lay ajar, candlelight flickering out through the crack along with her mother's hushed prayers. She could just see her mother, hunched over her sewing table with her candles and her rosary, Bible flung open to some seemingly relevant passage or another. Hushed syllables and choked sobs drifted out, her name among them._

 _Reaching the door, her small hand pushed on it, letting the wood swing wide with a slow crawl. The woman straightened where she had been curled over her knees on the floor and turned fearful eyes at the entrance. "Mother," she greeted, the barely patient tone of voice chilling from a child. "You're interrupting my Kafka."_

 _The woman before her let a tremulous smile move across her lips. "Kafka? You're done with Voltaire for now?"_

' _No,' Hermione thought. No changing the subject. But then, wouldn't it be exciting…_

" _Candide_ _was_ _ **boring**_ _!" she stated with a out upon sigh, mentally cataloguing her mother for signs she was relaxing a bit. "I'm reading 'The Metamorphosis' again, studying Grete."_

" _Grete?" her mother turned fully on her folded legs to face Hermione, smiling. "That was the sister, right? You know, some scholars believe the title is actually in reference to her slow transition." Hermione nodded, inwardly pleased at the slow slump of her mum's shoulders and barely there smile that was directed at her. The smile is what did it; like she had forgotten. Again. The woman had forgotten that Hermione was studying, forgotten to close the door all the way, and had now forgotten that her daughter was to be respected._

 _With a wave of her hand, Hermione quietly closed the door, her own smile blooming while her mother's eyes widened._

Hermione gasped awake, floundering a bit in the sheer volume of bedsheets and blankets of which she had been provided. Lucius Malfoy was certainly a gracious host, his wife alongside, as their newest guest had been provided every amenity and then some. Bellatrix, predictably, had thrown a fit that the Virgo Suite would be Hermione's for the duration of her stay, but calmed once her "Lord and Master" raised his brow at her over the dinner table.

While their trek to Gringott's days before had technically been a success, the horcrux being retrieved and placed in secured storage - " _Away_ from the Manor, thankyouverymuch," as Narcissa had requested - the altercation with Harry and Ron had left Hermione… unsettled. Sleep since had been harder to find than when she and the boys were in the tent. and even more broken besides considering the new dreams plaguing her. Just thinking about her redheaded and bespectacled friends made her head and heart ache.

When she had recounted their history to Tom the other night, she hadn't expected to feel almost angry at them. Being forced away from them and asked to discuss their friendship had brought to light a lot of resentment. She realized she had spent much of their friendship either in tears, being given the cold-shoulder, or nearly killing herself to help both young wizards respectively. Ron was constantly belittling her and while, when it was intentional in order to manipulate her, she could and often did tell him to sod off, when it was without thought? Well, that hurt the worst because it meant that he had no problem easily hurting her in a myriad of small ways. Every time he called her shrill, a know-it-all, made some comment about her cat, or spoke down about her skills as a witch, it gouged just a little bit more away from the space she had in her heart for Ronald Bilius Weasley.

Harry was… Harry was. He was the reason she was feeling like she was. Ron was easy to be angry with, because he made it easy. Harry didn't, having spent so many of his formative years trying to stay undetected and nonthreatening. When Harry fucked up, though, it was big. She knew he had been having visions as a result of the locket, knew that the scar made him more susceptible to dark magics, and yet, when he finally succumbed to the horcrux after Ron left, Hermione still couldn't forget his actions or the words he said. Or forgive them, though she had told Harry otherwise.

" _Harry, stop it," Hermione pushed at the hands at her waist once again, reaching for the camp cutting board to move the mushrooms into the broth with the small bits of rabbit. She had been lucky to find some wild onions growing in a small cluster nearby, just barely green after the long winter. Grabbing up her knife again, Hermione set to dicing a couple of shoots, sprinkling them into the broth as well. The hands came back, this time with fingers delicately grazing the exposed skin of her waist above her jeans._

" _Harry, I said stop. It's the horcrux, just-"_

 _She put the knife back down and moved to turn around, but his weight settled against her pushing her into the transfigured counter. Her hip bones ground against the lip and she grimaced and whimpered._

" _Shhh…" his breath was heavy in her ear, moisture making her want to wiggle a finger in it. Those damnable hands were working again, this time one moving to cup her denim-clad mound while the other grasped her throat before she could speak again. "You're such a good girl, aren't you, Hermione? Always helping me, always there for me. Would you be there for me now, Hermione? If I needed you?" The hand at her womanhood began massaging, his middle digit occasionally tracing the seam and stimulating her clit beneath it. Shamefully, she was getting wet, she could feel her knickers dampening, her hips slightly rotating against his hand._

" _You like this, don't you, Hermione? I bet you've fucked yourself silly thinking about how it would be. Have you, Hermione? Have you cum all over your fingers wishing they were my cock?" He let out a shuddered breath, letting her throat go only to grip her hair from the back and force her to bend over. Oh fuck, she did. The hand that was playing with her deftly unbuttoned her fly and zip, leaving her knickers in place but rolling the jeans down to her thighs. The grip on her hip returned and the hand in her hair retreated for a moment._

 _It was when she felt the blood-heavy weight of his cock gently thrusting in the space between her apex and thighs that the hand returned to wrap around her throat and drag her up against him again. "You fucking_ _ **love**_ _this. I can feel how wet you are for me. You've thought about, haven't you? I know I have." The head of his cock brushed her clit and she gasped._

 _She shouldn't like this. He wasn't wrong about anything, though, which was even worse. While once or twice she had gotten herself off to fantasies of the boys around her, Hermione had never once actually expected or even thought anything would happen. Sure, the errant thought had occurred to her on the run that they were just three- now two- people alone in a tent, but this. This was too much. Her orgasm ripped through her and she slumped to catch her breath. An idea came to her and she canted against the hardness still working between her thighs, Harry's surprise making his grip slack. She stomped his instep, forcing him back a few steps away so she could gain space. Just as she had grabbed up the knife and was spinning to brandish it, he was pressing her back into the counter._

 _This time, her coccyx took the brunt of the pain, scraping along the edge of the counter. "That wasn't very nice, Hermione." His voice was darker, harsher, and while her nipples tightened out of sheer primal want, she knew down to her marrow that this_ _ **thing**_ _wasn't Harry. Even if she did one day have relations with The Chosen One, it wouldn't be because he was under the influence of anything. His darkness would be his own. She didn't stop to wonder where that last thought had come from, rather she placed the knife to the side and raised her hands, disarming herself._

 _Within a split second, two things happened; Harry's eyes cleared, as he looked at her first in confusion, then quickly in horror and shame, and then he was passing out in her arms. She sobbed the rest of that night, after tucking her best friend's flaccid cock back in his trousers and scourgifying her own knickers._

While he had blamed the horcrux and Hermione had initially accepted it, not really knowing what else to do. They had a mission. It was upon reading days later in a book she had liberated from the Black library at Grimmauld, that horcruxes effectively feed into and upon the darkest desires and fears that her capacity to forgive ended. Weeks went by of trekking the countryside, camping and not speaking about that night. Harry rarely wore the horcrux, staying as far away from her as the wards would allow when he did. She did the same for her turns with the locket, squeezing her eyes shut in the darkness of the woods while the phantom of Harry's voice crooned, Ron raged, and her mother prayed frantically in her ears.

After Ron had returned, she hadn't missed the odd look in Harry's eye directed at her. She later learned what the horcrux had shown Ron and felt sick… and disgustingly, thrillingly _naughty,_ like one does when they _don't get caught_. It didn't matter, though, as they were captured and dragged to her current location shortly thereafter. She wondered if Harry was relieved. Now she wasn't there to remind him of what happened, dulling his reunion with his makeshift family.

Fucking Weasleys. They came with their own baggage, considering Molly's frequent passive-aggression toward her, coupled with Ginny's barely there dirty looks anytime Hermione would join she and Harry. Arthur often acted like she was the smartest of the idiots, an anomaly to find a clever Muggle, much less one who 'earned' magic. As though the inherent ability she was born with was somehow a reward for not rolling in her own filth and cannibalizing babies, like some Purebloods believed Muggles did. _Her_ parents at least thought...

More anger swelled inside her thinking of her own parents. "Hey, Muddy, what-" Bellatrix popped her head in the door and a crystal egg on the mantle shattered. Throwing the door wide, the eccentric witch sauntered in, all attitude in her ruffled skirts, and crouched to investigate the broken pieces. "Uh-oh. Cissy's gonna be maaaaaaad..."

With a nonchalant shrug, Bella stood and fairly skipped over to where Hermione still lay half-tangled in her comforter, completely disregarding the crystal. "Who pissed in your Wiz-puffs this morning, sunshine?" The raven-haired witch ignored the glare levelled at her, choosing instead to start organizing the mess of blankets. While earlier that week, she and the younger woman before her had been at odds, Bella recognized something within her. Maybe it was narcissism, but she saw her younger self, filled with anger at the betrayals of those she held dearest. In any case, she would be silent until Hermione was ready to talk; that's what she herself would have wanted done.

The girl chewed the inside edge of her lip, brows furrowed. "I don't know who I am anymore." Her small fists were clenched in the folds of the blanket, knuckles whitening. When the mirror on the vanity started to rattle, Bella clucked her tongue and picked up the brush from the bedside table.

"Budge up, your fat arse is in the way." Without waiting, Bella was pushing her way to sit behind Hermione and pulling all her hair back.

"Excuse you, you heinous bitch," Hermione sputtered, cutting off sharply when Bellatrix tugged her hair to get a better look at her ends.

"Keep saying things like that and I'm gonna think you like me. Now come on, Muddy, you need a haircut and I'm feeling generous." Hermione allowed the elder witch to pull her into the bath and, five minutes later, was in the process of having her hair gently washed with crafty fingers.

"What happened, Mud?" Despite the grating nicknames, Hermione opened her eyes to stare into Bellatrix's own deep, worried gaze. A part of her crowed with pleasure to know this powerful and terrifying witch was concerned for her, how useful it would be, to cultivate it.

The eldest Black daughter pressed her lips together, taking time to gaze through the tonics and cleansers before speaking. Choosing one finally, she poured a bit into her hand, allowing the lather she created to overflow into Hermione's hair. Primrose and clove dulled some of the young witch's anger further, but she was still tense when Bella continued, nails massaging the lather into her scalp. "I can see it in you, you know. The hurt, the pain. I remember when I first really felt that. Everyone assumes Blacks are born Dark, but we're mostly made that way; products of our environments." Her shoulders shrugged, and she smiled down to Hermione sadly, bitter and brittle. She rinsed Hermione's hair, letting a towel then soak up excess moisture and working a detangling tonic and a relaxer into the strands.

"It wasn't until I started at Hogwarts that I realized no other girl in my dorm had to worry about their father coming to their rooms at night. They didn't know that a stinging hex could be modified to whip a seven-year-old girl for helping the blood-traitor at the market pick up fallen oranges." As Bellatrix spoke, Hermione realized the part of her she had been so afraid of had fallen quiet, as though recognizing a like soul. "So when Andromeda left, it felt like the very last person I could count on had left. Another thing everyone assumes is that I joined the Dark Lord immediately after Hogwarts. I did it after Andy left."

"The Dark Lord is the only one who hasn't walked away. He was taken, and then," Bella's wide, expressive eyes gleamed, "He came back." She placed a towel over Hermione's damp hair again, squeezing extra product out which hadn't been absorbed, and got to work combing it out and trimming it. Hermione wondered what it felt like that be that devoted to something, as Bella was Tom. She couldn't remember the last time she trusting in anything or anyone long enough to sow those seeds.

"I had a dream about my parents." Her voice cracked and Hermione cringed a bit. Bellatrix just nodded along, making a sound to show she was listening, before tilting her head slightly.

"How short can I go?" A mild heart attack later, Hermione was relaying the dream to Bellatrix.

"Damn, you're cold, Granger. You were a right scary little filth-baby, weren't you? A regular Damien, eh?" Bellatrix howled, finishing her last few snips and dancing to the cupboard for styling potions.

"How the hell do _you_ know about- no, you know what? I don't want to know about Death Eater movie nights." Lie. She totally did, but the look Bellatrix was giving her said now was the time to talk about feelings, not social activities for the infamous and previously incarcerated. With a sigh, she began to relay the rest of her previous thoughts that morning while her former enemy defined her curls and 'scrunched' her ends, whatever _that_ meant.

Bellatrix looked down at the crown of curls she was working on, a frown on her face. It was weird to think that a week before, the two had been enemies. Bella still remembered her first encounter with the spunky Gryffindor witch, in the bowels of the Ministry. For a sixteen year old girl, Granger had been impressive, pulling off spellwork fully grown adults had trouble with. When she had arrived at the Manor, Bella had been overtaken by the desire to see if she could break the headstrong girl. When instead, she was put through her own paces, Bellatrix realized the girl was even more powerful. Her esteem grew significantly after their bonding and planning.

Here, only days after the surprising witch's arrival, Bella found herself feeling outraged and sick for her. Her only friends had betrayed, abused, and abandoned her. _Her_. The best of them. ' _That's_ _fine,'_ Bellatrix thought as she turned Hermione in the transfigured chair to view her hair. ' _I'll help her make new ones.'_

"The Dark Lord may have some books you can peruse, if you want. I agree with you, though; blaming his actions solely on the locket seems like an easy out. But would you even want him to admit the truth?"

Hermione's questioning stare met Bella's in the reflection of the mirror. "The truth?"

The older witch shrugged back. "Sounds like he isn't as great a guy as the Wizarding World believes." Grabbing her hand, Bellatrix didn't allow Hermione a moment to think about the implications of her reply. "Now come on, Mud-Mud, our Lord says we're to meet for tea soon." Once again, the woman shifted back to resembling a teenager, nearly dancing Hermione from the room and making her laugh.

"Mud-Mud is where I draw the line!"

* * *

"And so it works out in my favor, considering they would need to be destroyed in the first place to even perform the ritual," Voldemort continued, sipping his lukewarm tea. "You said Albus already destroyed two?"

Severus nodded, still unsure and on-guard in front of his first Master. "To my knowledge, the diary and the ring, yes." His Lord nodded thoughtfully, running a knuckle along his chin.

"The locket was destroyed recently, as I have been informed." This was news to Severus, who said as much to the surprise of the man across from him. "Mm, yes, by the Sword of Gryffindor, actually. Bellatrix was nearly beside herself, considering the last place she had seen it was her marriage vault."

"The Sword? Not to be impertinent, but… you're sure, my Lord?" Albus had never even mentioned-

"One hundred percent certain, Severus. It was brought here along with Potter and company just days ago, and disappeared with them as well." He wanted to ask about Granger, but knowing Albus had kept something like that from him had overshadowed his need for answers. Now they came roaring back to the forefront of his mind and Severus realized his Lord was making it so, his mental prowess seemingly stronger with his restoration.

"Hermione Granger? What could the _Great Albus Dumbledore_ want with one little witch?"

"I am curious of that as well, my Lord," Severus admitted. He allowed the memory of some of the strange research he had been given to be pulled forward.

"Heinrich Hauer? Now that _is_ interesting. German muggle scientist from Hitler's little group, wasn't he? Ended up working for Grindelwald?" Severus nodded along, bensing to rifle through the satchel he had brought with him. Finding what he was looking for, he pushed it across the table.

"What I found most interesting was the contents of this folder in particular." Inside were documents regarding experimentation upon pregnant muggle women. Severus waited as his Lord looked through each paper, noting that he stopped for a longer time on one or two sheets in interest.

"Grindelwald ordered this? This… Severus, some of the things outlined in this are- I'm known for a great many dark deeds, but this completely defies any magic at all." Standing abruptly from his chair, the Dark Lord paced a bit, fingers over His lips and eyebrows drawn closely together. Just as suddenly as He stood, Voldemort stopped and gave Severus an indecipherable look. "If Grindelwald could source and implant magic- Severus, were there any successes? Aside from the two in the folder?"

"There is a reference to an earlier success on a similar project, but only the patient number is ever listed and no other information is given aside from brief notations. I'm assuming this was _before_ Grindelwald decided to use this specific method." A dreadful curl in his gut was curdling the cream in the lovely tea they had been provided.

"Method of wha-aaat the _hell_ are _you_ doing here?" Narcissa's second best set of guest china was shattered when Severus found out what had happened to Hermione Granger. She has just entered the Solarium on the arm of Bellatrix Lestrange, who goggled at the mess before turning to her companion.

"Ooohhhh, now Cissy's _really_ going to be mad."


	6. Chapter 6

An ungodly amount of chapter notes at the end if you're interested. Sorry for two things; this isn't as long as I had hoped, and this took forever to get out. It has a natural point where it ends, but I'm still not a fan of how this chapter went. What say you? PMs and reviews will tell, eh?

Standard disclaimers and chapter one warnings apply.

* * *

Mosaic 6

"SECTUMSEMPRA!" She charged toward the men, wand brandished at the spy, her tiny feet stomping in a manner belying their size.

"Protego Maxima," Tom barely spoke, but the effect was just as instantaneous and powerful as if it had been hollered. Her curse glanced off the shield he cast around her former Potions professor, ricocheting and tearing a floral-themed settee to bits nearby. Hermione's wand began a familiar motion, the first syllable of the Cruciatus beginning to form on her lips, when he struck again. With another wave of his wand, she was swiftly Incarceroused while bits of woven wood and downy feathers rained upon her head from the explosion of furniture seconds before.

"What was that?" Narcissa could be heard booming down the hall from her parlor. Bellatrix cringed in the door and sent a panicked look to Hermione, still bound where she had fallen with a thud.

"Nothing, Cissy!" Bella yelled back as innocently as possible while Hermione frantically took stock of the damages she had caused, and Severus filed such a marked switch in focus away in his mind. Maybe the girl was suffering a mood disorder? It was hard to say how she would be affected mentally, but based upon his readings, there was no doubt that she _would_ be in the first place.

Hermione glared at the floor as Bellatrix vanished the ropes surrounding her, ignoring the audience they had for the time being. She just knew Bella would have words for her, the hypocrite.

"You could have been killed, Hermione, and then what would have happened?"

 _Unlikely._

Bella helped her stand, grasping at her elbow with taloned fingers and hauling her body forcefully upright. "And Cissy's poorly chosen couch! When something is that awful to look at, it's expensive!"

 _And I'm sure Lucius' pristine, lily white arse has passed more gas than an American muscle car while sitting in it._ "I'll fix it." The raven-curled witch finally stopped patting the down and wood bits from Hermione's hair and dress, to stare at her with annoyance and astonishment. With nary a twitch of warning, the witch was again pulling Hermione, this time to the fallen furniture while whispering ferociously.

"You'll - Muddy, you have been _chosen_ for our Lord by fate. That doesn't mean you can go shitting on the people around you." With a huff and a wave of her wand, Bellatrix righted the questionably upholstered, undoubtedly overpriced settee, setting to work while she lectured.

"Pot, Kettle. But I do know what you're saying." Bellatrix shot her a doubtful look over a Betula Reparo and she sighed out the last of her Stitching charm. "I can't just attack people outright, especially as a guest of your Lord. It has value and I understand, Trixie- ohh, that's gonna stick, I like that." The two set about fixing their appearances before starting over to where Tom and Snape stood, relaxed but ready should she attack again.

"Mostly because I hate it?" She could just hear the resignation and loathing in her companion's voice, but knew Bellatrix wouldn't argue. Not now that she had shown how 'unstable' she was. If the woman weren't just so _godsdamned useful_.

"Sure," Hermione's glib reply accompanied a dismissive wave while she finished vanishing the bits of debris from herself.

"He's _your_ Lord, too, Muds. " She felt the magic twist her hair back up into a coiled bun, tugging painfully at the roots with Bella's annoyance. "Snape wouldn't have even been called here if our Lord didn't think it was necessary, so sit down and shut your annoyingly attractive gob." That tone the LeStrange witch had was going to get old quickly. _Useful. She has use._

"Yes, Trixie." Resigned to her fate, Hermione followed the lithe, doll-like woman to the table.

* * *

"Chosen by fate, my Lord?" Severus asked slowly. Questioning the Dark Lord was nigh suicidal before He had died the first time. His second incarnation wasn't any more even keel and in fact had made a sport out of inventive tortures for anyone who showed any doubt. Mulciber had been cruciated for simply looking like he had been trepidatious (later, Severus would find out the wardrobe of a man had been concerned he had left his oven on).

His Lord hummed distantly in response. "A prophecy." Unlike the last prophecy He had been made aware of, His behavior was almost bored. As though such a thing were as commonplace as a cloud before rain. Though, Severus supposed, it would make sense considering.

"Forgive my cheek, but you attract prophecies like a gold attracts nifflers." If there were any proof his Lord had undergone a monumental change, it was that Severus was not only still standing, but He was snickering beside him.

"Ooh! Did Sevvy make a funny?" Bellatrix's grating child-like voice scratched his eardrums as the witches joined them.

"I suppose even a traitorous snake would have some sort of humor," Granger replied, stepping between Bellatrix and their Lord. She tossed him a dark look, the air around him filling with tension. Her recognizable mass of hair started puffing back out of the repaired updo and he realized it was the force of her magic causing the oppressive feeling.

"Hermione." Immediately after the Dark Lord spoke, the pressure eased and Severus fought a cringe when his ears popped rather painfully. Without taking her dark walnut eyes off him, Hermione murmured an apology to the Dark Lord, sitting grumpily in the chair before her and fiddling with the jam knife from the serviette. Severus didn't even need to use Legilimency to see she was considering the various way in which he might perish from the dulled edge.

"My Lord, if I may ask a question?" Bellatrix piped up as she took her place in the seat to the pouting witch's left. Noting the utensil in her fellow female's grasp, the former Black tsked her deceased mother's tsk and snatched it away. "Are you five?" she hissed, turning her attention apologetically back to their Lord and Master.

Their Lord and Master who, Severus realized, wasn't the least bit irritated with the interruption. "Yes, Bella?" he prompted amicably. _What in the seven hells is going on?_

"Why _is_ Snape here? We already know he's a-"

"He's a thrice-damned traitorous sack of-" Though Bella's silencing was thorough as it was expedient, it didn't take a master of speechreading to see the Granger witch was rather creatively, if obscenely, voicing her opinions of his character.

"Hermione Jean Granger," Bellatrix gasped at the girl when she gave up on words and began relying on sign language. "You are acting every bit of the mudblood you say you are not. Cease at once, or I'll tell Cissy to seat you at the childrens' table for a year." Finely scarred fingers stopped in their movements before resuming again in Bellatrix's direction, the girl's face painted in an angry rouge. "Keep it up and she'll know about everything you've broken AND that you punched her son."

'How did YOU know?' Hermione signed, distracted once again from the presence of the Dark Lord and his spy. Seeing her actions firsthand, so different from the overeager, positive girl in his classroom, Severus was fascinated.

"Well, _someone_ had to teach the nance Occlumency. Now, are you going to remember your manners?" With a petulantly signed 'yes, mother,' Bellatrix lifted the charm and turned her attention back to the Dark Lord.

Their Lord nodded his thanks to his lieutenant, who nodded back without simpering, as had been typical of her. It seemed, however, typical was no longer such. "Severus is here for quite a few reasons, one of which is to assist Miss Granger." The witch in question popped her mouth open once more, but closed it quickly with a warning glance from her oddly mature compatriot.

With a motion from the Dark Lord, Severus once again brandished the files in his possession. "It seems, Bellatrix, Miss Granger, that Albus Dumbledore is rather keen to find out whether or not 'Potter's Muggleborn' is still alive." The mocking media title was punctuated with a rattle of the china.

"And _why_ , pray, would 'The Great Albus Dumbledore' give a hippogryff shite about my status on this side of the Veil?" The violent witch seethed across from him. While she had always been easily irritated, usually by the same triggers as he himself, her new barely contained violence was alarming to say the least.

"I believe, Miss Granger, he thinks you are a threat." Surprise gave way to a light of smug realization flickering in her dark gaze and her shoulders relaxed some. "Regarding my activities, while it is no secret I am a double-agent, I find my loyalties are becoming more solid as time passes." Hopefully she understood. Albus had manipulated his service from the very beginning, but Severus was weary of being the dark horse servant of the Light. He was aware of the impending need to choose a side and with the way the tides were turning, Severus' choice was becoming more clear.

"Tired of being a puppet, Snape?" Hermione asked with false saccharine, hoping to goad the Dark wizard opposite her.

He remained unflappable. "Yes, actually." There was no hiding the triumph he felt as he watched her eyes widen in shock, and Severus couldn't be arsed to try considering the little bitch had been considering cutting his bollocks off and choking him with them. His amused stare didn't even drop as Granger grabbed up the silver sugar tongs and brandished them an inch or two from his left eye, too short in stature to reach him even leaning across the table as she was. Bellatrix was stood beside her, attempting once again to wrangle the muggleborn witch. She was still clicking them together threateningly when low laughter stopped all motion.

Hermione regained her composure fairly quickly, blushing while the Dark Lord chuckled at the most entertaining tea he had had in a long while. _Ever, really._ "As amusing as this has been, perhaps, Hermione, you might rein in your temper and let Severus explain."

"Yes, Tom." Now _that_ was interesting to Severus. He was even more keen to do as his Lord bid, if it meant getting to the truth of the changes in those around him. If his suspicions were correct, the natural balance was shifting. Precautions needed to be taken. He observed as the witch leaned over the files, absently counting the papers as she rifled through them. A glance to his Lord kept his tongue silent, a brief view of folded parchment in an inner pocket of the Dark Lord's blazer, more than likely silenced and featherlight.

Once again, the air in the room shifted, the scent of ozone vaguely tainting it with the promise of a storm. Severus noted Bellatrix's worried gaze on the girl beside her, a hand coming up to touch the Granger girl's shoulder. She was focused on the Grindelwald experiments, her eyes filling with tears. _Genuine emotion. Interesting._

Bellatrix let out a yelp when the hand she had moved to comfort Hermione was met with a shock. A heady charge sent a shiver up his spine, and by the state of Bellatrix's hair, Severus wasn't the only one affected.

* * *

" _Bubbe? What's that?" Warm amber eyes wrinkled at their edges as her grandmother turned to regard what had the girl so interested. Cold seeped into her Bubbe's nutmeg eyes when she looked down at the subject of such regard; her arm._

" _That… oh, well that was my number." It was like sandpaper had scratched Bubbe Vava's throat raw when she replied. Stupid Can-Sir making her stay in this stupid nursing centre with its funny smells and dry air. A number? A silly number had made her Bubbe sad, so Hermione decided to fix it._

 _She injected as much glee into her response as she could, willing the woman to smile as well. Such a weird place for a phone number, and Bubbe didn't even have a phone in her room anyway. Hermione wished she did, though, almost as much as she wished Bubbe Vava wouldn't be in any more pain. In any instance, she puffed out her little chest proudly. "_ _Your number? Why is it on your arm? Mine is 01-"_

" _No, dear. Not my telephone number. Not at all." Bubbe's voice was faint and tired, even more sad than before. Ten minutes later, Bubbe went to take a nap and Hermione went home. She didn't wake up._

* * *

Hermione flipped to the next page of reports from Grindelwald's work at Sachsenhausen, reading the description of Subject 97303-11-26-3b.

"Bubbe." Her voice was barely a whisper, her blood suddenly pumping loudly in her ears and making her dizzy. The papers spilled from her lap as she stumbled away from the table.

Tom and Snape's voices intermingled through the whooshing in her eardrums and the crashing of ceramic to the floor. Her breath sped up in her chest making her stomach roil. Lightning glared in her sight and thunder shook her bones.

"Hermione!" "Miss Granger!"

Tripping on her skirt in her backpedal, Hermione fell hard, her tailbone smashing painfully on the floor. In a series of events she would be embarrassed about later, Hermione promptly vomited in her own lap, falling to the side to pass out cold.

* * *

Voldemort unfurled the parchment, the contents making his stomach drop in what felt a little like he imagined defeat to feel.

 _Infant Female_

 _Hermione Jean Granger_

 _Blood A-pos, Muggleborn_

 _DoB 9/19/1979_

 _Due Date 8/1/1979_

 _Length 20.5cm_

 _Weight 10lbs2oz_

 _Incidents 4 confirmed*_

 _*see attached_ _reports_

Odd. Nothing _seemed_ off, but something still did not feel right. The length of the pregnancy was a concern, but certainly not unheard of for a magical child. The Dark Lord was sure there would have been more information, but she had presented as a slightly-above average Muggleborn. Of her four bursts of accidental magic, only one had been harmful to another person. She had caused a boy to partially transfigure, the lanky five year old having become part mole when he taunted her about her hair and teeth. Otherwise, the accidental levitation and two electrical surges were normal for the ages they occurred.

Voldemort's eyes widened with realization. The lengths between incidents wasn't odd at first glance, but the three years between her attack on the boy and the first electrical surge seemed strange for someone of such talent. He recalled his own experiences, remembering how his actions never really declined after attention was drawn to his abilities by the other children. Rather, he had learned how to make them look like everyday accidents, only making his abilities apparent when he needed to make a point. If these were confirmed, how many were unconfirmed? He made a mental note to take dinner with the girl later; his Legilimency would provide him the answer.

The stirring of energy nearby signalled she was waking up. Smoothly switching topics back to the Grindelwald Experiments, he asked his man, "Severus, the data here suggests Grindelwald somehow _grew_ a magical core in the fetus. Exactly how would he have done that?"

* * *

"Essentially, he did just that. Testing was in-utero injection at the time of spinal formation, with supplements taken daily as modified muggle prenatals.

The supplements themselves contained Master-made powders to enhance the growth of the magical core, usually given to underdeveloped magical children after birth." She could hear a voice explaining as if in a dream. It had been a voice bringing to mind the snarky chalk on the blackboard which had guided her on her journey to reaching her true potential. The voice of a traitor, or - well, she supposed he _had_ chosen a side, if he was bringing his findings to Tom. If she tried hard enough, Hermione could almost picture his face as he discussed what she supposed were the nature of the experiments on her grandmother.

"The notes end at approximately 37 weeks, judging by the dates," his pleasing accent asked the other man.

"Yes, the aufseherinnen of that ward were either killed in action during the liberation of the camp, or abandoned it to escape. In any case, when Allied forces searched, Chava and the other patient were rescued." She could hear the whoosh of parchment being shifted and passed. "The other patient, a Mazel Feintuch, died only days after their rescue, the child stillborn. Chava birthed a son roughly a week later, healthy and by all rights full-term. After that, she relocated to an area outside of Reigate, where she, for all intents and purposes, disappeared. At least as far as muggle health services were concerned."

Chava D. Granger, formerly Dähne, had been a force with which to be reckoned when she was alive, having been Hermione's whole world. The kind-eyed woman had a heart of gold and a core of steel, never shying away from teaching her granddaughter the harsh realities of the world, while still advocating for fairness and justice. After her death when Hermione was about to begin Primary, the young Granger had felt so alone, having lost the only person she had felt truly understood her. Now, to hear the official reports of what her beloved grandmother had endured and overcome filled her with purpose and renewed the bond she felt with the elder woman. She too had survived torture and come out a winner. But what was this about the NHS? Her heart throbbed in time with her magical core, the rush of sensation filling her ears and giving away her state to the men at the table nearby.

"How are you feeling, Hermione?" Tom's voice strengthened to reach her ears, making it known he was aware she had awoken. Annoyed at the abrupt change in the conversation at the table but unwilling to prove she had indeed been listening, Hermione replied with the airy hum of half-awareness. Slowly, she opened her eyes, taking a moment to blink out the sleep from them.

"What happened?" The question interrupted by her small grunt as she flopped onto her back to stare at the ceiling. With a deep breath through her nose, she threw her arms above her head and arched her shoulder blades and tailbone into the cushions to crack her back. A staccato whine escaped her as her lower back shot pain up the spine which was simultaneously popping by the vertebrae.

Tears gathered at the insides of her eyes, her nose prickling obnoxiously, as she slowly laid back down. Hermione was surprised to see a vial levitating next to her, but grateful, and she downed it with another hum.

"You had a severe panic attack, Miss Granger." Snape replied to her question, politely ignoring the previous episode. The effects of the pain potion started to set in, the stabbing pain becoming a bearable dull throb. She nodded and sat up, moving to sit on the couch properly and crossed her ankles.

Hermione noted her clean skirt and grimaced. With a red face, she met the eyes of both men. "Thank you both for your care and, ah, censure." They both nodded, decidedly choosing the moment she rose to make her way back to the table to prepare her a cup of tea and choose finger foods for her.

"Where's Bella?" She asked as she gingerly sat in the same chair as before. If it had the look of being newly restored, Hermione wasn't mentioning it. That it was much more comfortable in which to sit than before was the perfect justification.

"She, ah, she needed to-"

"What Severus means to say-"

"She freaked out and had to be sent to her quarters with a Calming Draught, didn't she?" Hermione deadpanned at the two oddly bumbling Dark wizards. Severus hummed in agreement, giving up on being conscientious of her feelings almost immediately. She liked that. He wasn't one to draw out anything unnecessarily, but he would always first attempt the logical response to a situation. Maybe she _had_ reacted too harshly toward his presence earlier. If just for his Mastery and his penchant for diabolical spell creation, Severus Snape would be a good person with whom to ally oneself.

"You made one of my top agents into an inconsolable puddle of mummy-ness," Tom informed her with a crooked little grin, which really wasn't fair. Her heart skipped a beat or eight.

"Bellatrix was worried," Hermione murmured back wryly, biting into a chocolate-topped jammy. She could feel the gaze watching her delicate movements, a heady feeling of a different type of power filling her. With a swipe of her thumb, she removed the crumbs, reveling in how Tom's eyes darkened when she daintly sucked it clean with an intentionally coy expression. "That's so sweet."

A shifting of the other man in their presence redirected her focus. "Severus, I believe I owe you an apology," Hermione began abruptly, wiping her hands gently on a napkin. She rose from her seat, issuing forth her right hand. "It was wrong of me to attack you without provocation and disrespect you not only as an educator, but as a guest of Malfoy Manor and the Dark Lord. I hope you can forgive me."

This was Patronus material right here, the way Snape was staring at her with his mouth agape. An idle part of her wondered if she could even still cast one. He rose finally, as though he seemed to remember what was happening, and leaned over her hand to press his lips to her knuckles. "All is well, Miss Granger. I have no quarrels with you."

* * *

 **Chapter Notes:**

 _-Betula Reparo_ : my own lil thing here. Betula being Latin for Birch, in addition to the obvious Reparo, means the hideous sofa was made of birch wood.

-Subject number is as follows- prisoner id (specific to camp), experiment, participant number, subgrouping. Hermione's grandmother was in the eleventh group to be tested upon, the twenty-sixth participant, and was in individual testing group three subcategory b. The prisoner ID is one of the ones actually used in Sachsenhausen, and yes, medical experiments were done there, specifically on women.

-Mulciber DID leave his oven on, but his elf was kind enough to extinguish it. He even left a nice pot of leftovers for Mulciber. Isn't that nice? There actually could be a short drabble about this, I think, because I've headcanoned the fuck out of his elves for no reason. Lemme know your thoughts; is that something you'd be up for?

-Both Chava Dähne and Mazel Feintuch are constructed names. My goal here was to take common Yiddish and/or German names for authenticity. Both Chava and Mazel have meanings, which are not important to the story so much as just random little bits for the more intellectually stimulated. I know I love stories where there are little things like that.

-Aufseherinnen is what the female Nazi soldiers were called who guarded the female prisoners. It's the feminine form and basically is like 'overseer' or 'attendant'. Singular is, of course, Aufseherin. A famous Sachsenhausen aufseherin is Ilse Koch, who was the wife of Karl Otto-Koch, commander of Buchenwald. If this sounds familiar, it's because Ilse Koch was transferred from Sachsenhausen to Buchenwald by her then fiancé after a year, where she became chief overseer and committed her most evil deeds. She was known as _Die Hexe von Buchenwald_ (The Witch of Buchenwald) by the inmates for her acts. I learned of her as the Butcher of Buchenwald. She doesn't have a place in this story, but the term does and if you learned a little smidge of world history from this story, well… fuckin' awesome. *thumbs up*


	7. Chapter 7

Sorry for the extended wait, writer's block got me. Got over it like a bad habit, though. Did another note thing at the end, thoughts and the like. Feel free to PM or review and let me know your thoughts, theories, etc.

Standard disclaimers and chapter one warnings apply.

* * *

Mosaic 7

Harry leaned forward to grab another tome and dragged it across the table to himself, checking the notebook page beside him to ensure the titles matched. Her loopy public school handwriting stared back up at him from the steno page, mocking his ability to find an answer. He was decent at researching, having picked up some of Hermione's habits when they were readying him for the Triwizard Tournament, but without their third member, he and Ron were just blindly seeing and not retaining. _'Nope,'_ he thought, looking at his best mate, _'No retention at all.'_

Ron was almost drooling into the crease of the open pages, a high pitched whine occasionally escaping his nose as he slept face-first in a book about daemonic possession. Apparently, that was different than demonic possession, but whatever. It all went back to Hermione. Her bold voice echoed through his mind, chastising him for his lack of organization. Harry flipped back to the page of his notes, Inner Hermione telling him to _'read between the lines, Harry. There is a common link. This is why color coded-'_ He tuned her out in favor of reading over his notations, letting his mind wander naturally while he did.

Darkest Mindes had an entire chapter about trauma, torture, and mental illness, and how they 'opened the door' for Dark Magic to take root. Had it truly been her with that bloody barmy LeStrange, or was she still prisoner and someone was wearing her face?

The Imperial Gayze, and Other Unforgivable Tales contained references to the possibility of a witch or wizard taking on parts of their torturer's personality when held under two of the three Unforgivables for long enough. If it _had_ been Hermione, how long would LeStrange have to have tortured her for his best friend to be so comfortable and natural pretending to _be_ the Dark Lord's Lieutenant?

Adding to his confusion was the fact that he had been having the weirdest flashes from Voldemort. Sometimes they would be his own memories from an outside perspective, others were simply average moments; He might be looking at a clock on the wall, or simply viewing the ceiling of a darkened bedchamber. Morbid, gut curdling curiosity had him reading The Foul Fiend, the book Hermione had been reading before her disappearance. It had been hidden behind a series of pureblood journals under an enchantment, he remembered. Hermione had instantly grabbed it up after the necessary security spells and taken off to read it. Only days later, while tracking the next horcrux, she would be lost to them, the book left forgotten beneath her cot pillow.

Deciding not to dwell at the moment on the contents of Herpo the Foul's unsolicited autobiography, he woke Ron. As the ginger stumbled over his own chair and off to bed somewhere down the hall from the kitchen of Shell Cottage, Harry busied himself with picking up the books they had strewn across the table's surface. His mind wandered again as it had been lately, melancholy reverie broken an untold amount of time later by the chime of the hearth. The series of intermittent windchimes signalled it was their great and fearless leader. Wonderful. He deftly stacked the final book and placed them neatly at the corner of the table, taking the time to ensure they were in perfect formation. Whatever Dumbledore wanted, it couldn't be good for him. Not if it meant a hushed conversation after hours between the Leader of the Light and the Boy-Who-Lived.

"Ah, there you are, my boy." Dumbledore greeted quietly when Harry moved into view and sat down on the settee, respectful of the late hour. "I was hoping you would still be awake." Glancing at the grandfather clock face in the corner, Harry ignored the memory of wearing Voldemort's skin and noted it was nearly half twelve. _Definitely time for bed,_ he thought, only a little annoyed by the late-night Floo call.

"Good evening, Professor," Harry greeted the floating bearded face quietly. Harry snorted inwardly as he sat down across from Albus' face. The only benefit to _this_ conversation was Albus' inability to use Legilimency via Floo, Harry soon discovered. "How have you been, Harry? Mending well, I gather?" Bright green eyes sparkled encased in their flame confines, the elder wizard smiling with paternal affection. It was with this more detached communication Harry recognized the slight strain in Dumbledore's smile, the almost forceful twinkle gaining effulgence.

Harry played along, smiling tiredly back and rubbing his healing bruises good naturedly. "Yeah, Professor. Ron and I have been doing some of your suggested reading and enjoying Fleur's hospitality." He kept his voice modulated, his face open despite how closed off his thoughts were to his mentor.

Suspicion mounted further as he watched the flame visage seem to relax, finding no cause for alarm in his young protege's demeanor. _Why would Dumbledore have been looking for such a thing in the first place?_ Harry was absolutely certain something was going on. He was being kept out of something; something big.

This time, there was no pain when it happened. His scar didn't throb nor did his grey matter feel like it would ooze from his ears. **'** _ **Lovely imagery, Potter**_ **.'**

That. Fucking. Voice.

In the background, Dumbledore was still talking, Harry somehow keeping an interested if tired expression. _'What the fuck do_ you _want?'_ He questioned, tuning back in enough to the head in the Floo to answer a question about Ron's recovery. Without warning, images flew threw the background of his thoughts, making him fake a cough to hide his shock from the man in the fire. _The cupboard under the stairs and spider friends. Gawked at through the compartment door his first time on the Hogwarts Express. Red dripping down the stone, Enemies of the Heir beware. The loneliness, the hostility. Rumors and Ron's anger, the Triwizard tasks. Voldemort, red eyed and looming, skeletal in his resurrection. His mother, screaming. Tom Riddle in Slughorn's memories._

Harry felt a mental pause, like the inhalation before a speaker comments, but was interrupted by the stream of words coming through the Floo. "-Granger hasn't been found, but I assure you, we will keep trying." Hermione. More visions swirled through his head. _Her_ reparo _on the train. Her petrified form in a hospital bed, nutmeg brown eyes turned grey and frozen in fearful realization. A beautiful girl in a periwinkle dress, her waist small in his hands as her smiling eyes glittered in laughter and her head tilted back, exposing her graceful neck. Her soft hand holding his at Godric's Hollow, a wreath conjured for parents he had never really known._ He forced the visions away and concentrated once more on the elder wizard in the flames, who looked decidedly unsettled. In the back of his mind, he felt Voldemort, the sensation of contemplation weaving around the entity.

"Harry, I must tell you, however, if we find Miss Granger, there is no telling what kind of state she will be in. I don't want to alarm you, but-" Both Harry and Voldemort jerked to attention, twin feelings of irritation rising with the elder wizard's words.

"But what? You're telling me what? She might need Healing? Okay, we'll get her a Healer. Or is it something else?" Crimson started to fade in at the edges of Harry's view as his temper rose. He felt Voldemort in the back of his mind like the eye of calm within an earth-wrenching hurricane of emotion. Without thought, he gave the Dark wizard his attention. _'Is he asking me what I think he is?'_

 _ **'He wants to know if you can-'**_

"-Do what is necessary, my dear boy. There is every likelihood as not that Miss Granger has-" Oh, fuck that.

"What? Gone Dark? Joined Him? Yeah, yeah, there is. You think I don't know that already?!" The deep red haze flared in his vision. "We left her there, not you. We did, me and Ron, and we have to live with that, and now you're, what? Just nonchalantly flooing me late at night to discuss whether or not I could kill my best friend like a rabid dog? What kind of person do you think I am?!"

This time, Harry was unable to stop the images as they ripped through his mind. Memories of his dark desires, suppressed for their brutality. _The time he had fantasized about sticking Cho Chang to a Library table spread eagled so he could eat her until she erupted all over his face, shocked and crying for how she had disgraced Cedric's memory by humping the Chosen One's thick tongue. The feeling of Lavender Brown's throat convulsing around the tip of his length as she swallowed his spendings, fucking herself wetly with her fingers in a hidden dungeon alcove in Fifth Year with his fist gripped in her hair. Hermione in the tent, her soft thighs welcoming his thrusts even as her heart raced in fear and she whimpered in defeat._

 _ **'And people say I'm evil and depraved. Tell me, Potter,**_ **can** _**you do what is necessary, because I guarantee you… it very well may be.'**_

More visuals, this time from the wizard who had marked him. _Another prophecy; 'She will know you by your name.' His mother's screams. Incorporeal, living as a snake, becoming Quirrell. The agony of Unicorn Blood, taken mercilessly, drunk with necessity. A worm-like creature, dependant on a snivelling rat. Becoming Voldemort, mind in disarray. A ritual, almost whole now. Summoned to an opulent room. Hermione screaming in pain before going silent. The slight opening of heavy doors allowing him to see her as she sat up straight and set hell upon unseen entities. The howl and wet squish, a chilling laugh. "Mr. Riddle, I believe this is yours." Evening drinks, intelligence shared. Maternal Bellatrix. A file, Grindelwald's name, references to a location and experiments. Snape sharing Dumbledore's orders. Unstable magic, unstable mind. Rabid._ _ **'We need to talk.'**_ Without another word, he felt Voldemort leave his mind, the carnage done.

Dumbledore was staring at him curiously. Harry schooled his face quickly to a cool mask. "Sir, if it's all the same to you, I haven't slept in-" he looked at the clock again, "-about 21 hours, so I don't think now is the best time to discuss this." Harry sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. "Let me think about everything. If there is another way, I- sir, I can't lose my best friend. Not without doing everything else I can first."

Dumbledore, to his credit, nodded in a grandfatherly manner, all wisdom and understanding. "I commend you for your desire to consider all aspects, my boy. You have grown so much; it's just a shame it wasn't due to better circumstances." That rankled. Rather than debate semantics with the wizard, Harry simply said his parting words and closed the Floo connection. A distinct feeling of 'fuck that dude' colored his actions with petulance.

With a quick wave and a mumbled Nox, the lights were extinguished. After having a piss and taking care of his nightly ablutions, the Chosen Savior laid back in his bed and stared at the ceiling, letting his mind wander. His eyes closed slowly, heavy with exhaustion, only to blink back open to a familiar scene. This time, when he pushed his hard length between her soft thighs, he met his own reflection in the shiny tea kettle. Guilt settled in his gut, but he was unable to stop the thrill of pleasure chasing up his spine. As both sets of eyes met - one lust-filled and ashamed, the reflection annoyed and smug - he felt his consciousness pulled from the scene, distantly remembering the way he had collapsed in that quiet tent in the forest moments after the scene began.

Now, he was focused straight ahead, staring through eyes which weren't his into an ornate washroom mirror. The face was familiar yet slightly older than he had last seen with fashionable scruff on his jaw making his age difficult to ascertain, though somewhere between mid-twenties or early-thirties.

"Harry Potter. Did you know you're a horcrux?" Tom Riddle's face stared at him, asking the question without preamble. Before Harry could answer, Riddle held up a finger. "One moment." Everything went dark and Harry had the sensation of physical movement without the actual movement. A wave of a hand which he felt was extinguishing light, his legs walking twelve steps only to bend at the knee, buttocks settling gently into a cushion. Riddle's face popped into existence again in a rather average hand mirror, muggle in origin. Weird.

 _ **'Yes, I found out not long ago,'**_ Harry mentally replied. This time, he actively sent memories to the Dark wizard with whom he shared a connection. _Dumbledore pacing his office, arguing with the paintings through a crack in the door._ _ **'This was when he had me look at Slughorn's memories.'**_ _"You need to tell him!" Dippet's voice. "It isn't the right time!" Dumbledore half-barked back at the oil painting. "Is there_ ever _a right time to tell the boy he is a horcrux?" Phineas Black's calm voice questioned. The so-called 'greatest wizard' deflated immediately, sagging against his desk and looking every bit his age. "I will tell him soon."_

Riddle's face came back into view. "If it's any consolation, it was unintentional." Oddly, it was, and Harry said as much. "As it stands, I find I rather dislike insanity, so the horcruxes are being destroyed." The Dark wizard was almost flip about the fact, like mental stability was on par with a different cut of robe. Perhaps it was to someone like him.

"Oh, please, Potter. I'm not actually a sociopath. _You_ started the process, actually, when you destroyed my diary. The portion of my soul was not destroyed, rather _returned_. With every horcrux, I have regained more of my… faculties." Annoyance clearly visible on his handsome visage, Riddle rolled his eyes. "Exactly what _has_ Dumbledore been telling you? No, you know? Nevermind. I don't care. It's irrelevant to the matter at hand."

 _ **'And that is?'**_ Harry dearly wished Riddle would get to the point already. Though his body was technically asleep, his mind was active and he would wake without having had any R.E.M. Hermione's voice echoed facts about the necessity of different levels of sleep and proper amounts, and Riddle chuckled.

"She's still a swot, even here. Yes, Hermione is here, and she is - well, physically, she is well. Mentally, however… I believe we have a problem Mister Potter."

* * *

 _The smell of Sunday roast mingled with the almonds and honey of the Bee Sting Cake Bubbe had made earlier. She was seated on her grandfather's lap in the small dining room of their townhouse, sipping cooled tea from his cup "like a big girl". In the centre of the table sat the round bienenstich, crisp almonds twinkling under the fake crystal chandelier. The neutral autumn tones intermixed with summer accents on the elaborate runner decorating the otherwise bare dining table._

 _The colours seemed brighter somehow, more vibrant, as though an artist oversaturated only certain items. Her tea was burnt umber, the same ruddy brown as the edges of the linen. The almonds were almost golden, like the gilded links of the chandelier chain above her. There was the vague sensation of importance, like she needed to pay attention to everything._

 _In the background, through a hazy doorway to what she knew would be her grandparents' kitchen, she heard multiple voices. "You need to speak with him, Paris. He is your_ father _." Her grandmother's accented voice implored her father._

 _"I don't care if he is the Pope! I'll not speak to him. He knew, all this time, there was ample time to make arrangements." Her father sounded different, colder, not at all like the warm, proud man who called her his 'Little Princess'._

 _"Are you ready for Tuesday, Sweetness?" A rock settled in her gut. She would start school Tuesday, her first year of Primary. No, she decidedly was_ not _looking forward to Tuesday. Her unruly curls fluffed to and fro as she shook her head and hid her eyes behind her mother's bad attempt at feathered bangs. "Why not?"_

 _"What if they don't like me?" Her younger self asked Grandpa Bill. His work-worn hands turned her sideways in his lap so she had to look up at him. His kind smile bore down on her with understanding, blue-grey eyes twinkling in that special way._

 _"Because you're special?" He asked, tucking her fluffed, hairspray-stiffened curls under his chin as he held her close. She nodded, inwardly trying not to giggle as her hair made an audible noise like when her dad raked leaves. "I know it's hard, but you can't let them see if they bother you. When Bubbe was in the Bad Place, do you think she let the monsters see how scared she was?"_

 _Hermione shook her head this time. No, Bubbe Vava was strong and brave. When the monsters kidnapped her and took her to the Bad Place, when they poked her with sticks and called her mean names, she showed them_ they _were the weak ones. So pathetic, they had to make other people feel badly for being born different._

 _"Can you be like Bubbe on Tuesday?" Grandpa Bill asked her, his breath sweet and cold like the mints he always had in his pocket. Once again, Hermione nodded, and she spun in Grandpa Bill's tweed-covered lap to sip again at her tea._

 _Yes, she could be like Bubbe, she decided, watching her grandmother like a hawk for the rest of the evening. The Falscher Hase was delicious, the accompanying vegetables perfectly steamed and seasoned. Even her grape juice tasted sweeter on her tongue._

 _When the bienenstich was sliced and served, the filling was creamy and so flavorful, she even liked her mother for the moment. With the fond eyes of an almost six year old, she watched and blushed when her grandparents shared a quick kiss over a bite of the cake. Even though he wasn't her_ real _grandfather, he was a pretty good one._

 _The Grangers returned home that evening stuffed and happy. When she yawned just after eight, Hermione was sent upstairs to brush and lay down. A contented air had taken hold of the young girl. After tucking herself in, she laid and let her mind wander in the twilight. She thought about the school kids. Would they like her? She had to be careful to hide what she could do, even if someone made her mad. That was okay, there were other ways she could help the other kids learn._

Missy Hermione?

 _She heard the telephone downstairs ring, her mother's voice for once not irritating her. Lethargy set in her limbs and Hermione vaguely registered her father's frantic voice and the heavy click of the rotary handset. Whatever it was, dad was upset. Probably work. Drowsiness was starting to take hold, the weightless sensation of almost-sleep promising to carefully hold her in a comforting black hug._

Missy Hermione.

 _Footsteps, her door, a weight on her bed. "Princess?" Her father's hand on her shoulder shaking her gently. White noise began to buzz in her ears, the only clear sound her father's words. A plaintiff noise escaped her slowly waking form. Her eyes opened, taking in her dad in the low light of her room._

Miss- Missy- Her-mione!

 _The white noise became louder while her father's mouth slowed with his reply. His words crawled toward her while the white noise became an intermittent noise, adding to the confusion. "Little Princess. I have some bad news. Bubbe Vava passed away tonight." When the words sunk in, it was like being sucked into a sound vacuum. Suddenly, Hermione let loose a low noise which rose to a scream, and her vanity mirror shattered._

* * *

Hermione flew awake as her magic crested over and exploded, a visceral crunch assaulting her ears just before something warm and wet flew at her in her darkened room. Stomach flipping unpleasantly, Hermione blindly dug a hand behind her and gripped her wand under her pillow. "Lumos," she whispered, voice cracking with a squeak on the second syllable. Her eyes widened and she screamed at the gore before her. She screamed, and she shattered, and she screamed some more.

"As you now know, information has come to my attention, both regarding Dumbledore, and Miss Granger -" Riddle was cut off by a blood-freezing series of screams and the connection was severed.

'That was Hermione,' Harry thought dimly before exhaustion overtook him. Were he not so drained, physically and mentally, he would have wondered at how wide and fearful Riddle's eyes were when she screamed before he cut off the mental link between them.

* * *

NOTES: some of you enjoyed them last time. The purpose of these is to inspire writings from you, whether related to this specific fic's 'verse (ask please, especially for specific character info) or your own creation. They also teach a bit at times and are a way for me to relate to and reach you if you don't follow me on Facebook (since I'm bloody awful at responding to reviews).

*Daemons and demons: 'Daemon' is derived from the Greek 'Daimon' and is really just, in lore, considered a congenial, helpful spirit - somewhere between a human and a god. I see them as being which aren't 'good' in the sense of performing miracles and whatnot. Instead, I would think a daon might possess someone like a drunk or addict with the highest potential for the most good and inspire a better path for them, not because it's the right thing to do for the person but because it maintains the natural order and has the maximum benefit for nature.

Demons, on the other hand, are exactly what you think. In this fic, I make ample use of the supernatural, as I do in most of my fics, but I also try to tie in faith in some manner. Demons in this are generally chaotic, but serve a higher purpose and power, often possessing people "for the fun of it." That isn't something that will be touched on too much in this, but it's just some context should anyone enjoy that sort of thing.

Harry is SUPER fucked up. This is obviously not canon, but I'm playing on a few things here. Why is Harry so fucked? Combine being a horcrux with years of abuse, then having people try to kill you during your teenage years and actively being set up as a lamb for slaughter, while alternately being hailed as basically a rock star but having had no positive model for healthy relationships. You'd be a little fucked, too. And I want to make it clear, the horcrux IS making things worse for him, but all it is doing is acting as a particularly silver-tongued devil on his shoulder.

Is Tom OOC? Ask me if I give a fuck. This is all for a reason, and I will be getting to that next chapter. He's the consummate Slytherin, not a chump.

So Bill is not Hermione's grandfather. I do mention it previously, in a roundabout way. That will also be addressed at an upcoming point.

Hermione did exactly what you may think she did. Poor Tulip. She was a good elf. A hardworking and obedient elf. When Thistle was ill with FaePax and couldn't work the kitchen for a week, Tulip did it. She is survived by her mate, grounds elf Alder, and their children Heather, Branch, and Sickle, who are employed in the West and North wings, and as a stable elf respectively.


	8. Chapter 8

Hell of a month.

Standard disclaimer applies, content warnings in Chapter 1.

* * *

Mosaic 8

 **February**

"My Lord," Corban Yaxley stated lowly where he knelt fully before Him while the rest of His loyal followers looked on. "I bring news from the Department of Mysteries."

Voldemort drew the meeting to a close, inviting Yaxley to attend him in the privacy of His sitting room. Corban was already aware of his true visage, having assisted in locating both the ritual text and some of the less legal items required. His loyalty was admirable indeed, as Voldemort recognized and appreciated both his willingness to serve and his ability to dupe His other followers. Only His most trusted would be granted the right to look upon their Lord's true face.

"My Lord," the lean man greeted, waiting until the door fully closed behind him and the silencing wards were up before speaking again. "Tom." Corban was a breath of fresh air to the room, Tom appreciating the way in which his associate's sandy hair and bright blue eyes brought a bit of lightness into the otherwise dark lodge-like decor. It was no wonder the man was the subject of lustful gossip between those of young Malfoy's friends who were of a fairer persuasion. He was secure enough in his own sexuality to recognize an objectively attractive person, regardless of gender. Dismissing the flowery musings in his mind with an internal roll of his eyes, Tom motioned for his friend to sit and summoned Boppy for libations.

"How has the transition been thus far, Tom? Any pains or odd magical outbursts?" Corban asked after relishing his first sip of the aged Port provided. While his Lord had previously professed his absolute and unending magical might, the new incarnation - his _friend_ \- was more mindful of the fallacy in His prior hubris. He watched the man before him close his eyes, felt His power turn inward to sense within Himself the answer to Corban's question.

When Tom's eyes opened seconds later in doubt, Corban fought to keep his expression steady. The past month had shown the changes in Tom, from mad megalomaniac to a more thoughtful, careful political force. "I confess, Corban, I do not know. I can sense there is still discord, instability in my core, but I believe that is related directly to the pieces of soul still left to recover rather than any lingering effects from the ritual."

Corban nodded, understanding. "That is very likely, Tom. Also remember, depending upon where they have been hidden, the lack of cohesion even when they _are_ returned may be affected by any latent magics surrounding them." Tom furrowed his brow, asking without words for clarification.

"For instance, you said you had one specifically at Hogwarts?" Realization lit his companion's face, so Corban continued. "As you know, the wards at Hogwarts are extensive in themselves, each strengthening as the school - which is already semi-sentient and possessing its own magical ability - accepts a new Headmaster."

He took the time to have a bite of one of the tartes Boppy had generously provided with their drinks while the Dark wizard contemplated his words. "Severus has told me of two destroyed within Hogwarts' wards, yet when both pieces returned, I felt no difference."

"You likely wouldn't have, depending on how magically powerful you were when they were fashioned." Corban leaned down in his seat to pull out a journal he had been compiling. Flipping open to the page he needed, he passed the book over to his Lord and friend. "As you can see, I have found some link in magical interference here and… here. That said, we know correlation is not causation, however there does seem to be mounting evidence supporting the theory."

Tom read through the journal a bit more before stopping on the last page on which Corban had written. "This is phenomenal work, my friend, but I'm still not following on how the link explains the disruption of my core as the shards are returned. You mentioned earlier in your research age of the horcrux might have a hand; explain that if you will."

With a wave of his wand, Corban transfigured an empty side table into a blackboard. He drew a square and labelled it Hogwarts, around which he then sketched out interlocking circles and woven lines to illustrate the exterior wards. "Now, we know Hogwarts has extensive protections. Everything from apparition to the most benign of building shield charms are represented. As each Headmaster begins his tenure, they feed these wards in a blood ritual using the Heartstone of the school. This granta the sitting Headmaster access to security and surveillance, and is intended to be used in defence and protection of the students, faculty, and the building itself."

Inside the Hogwarts square, he drew more smaller squares and circles, with the occasional triangle. "Within, however, there are more personalized works. Faculty, for example," he said, dotting the squares with his chalk, "may set their own wards for their quarters. Even the Headmaster has no access to their quarters if they do so, as the agreement is between the faculty member and Hogwarts itself. Only in extreme circumstances such as grievous injury will Hogwarts allow the Headmaster to supercede Its agreement with the faculty member."

Pointing to the circles, he continued. "In the cases of classrooms themselves, there are no wards in place, but rather charms which the Headmaster and Hogwarts agree upon. Take the Defense classrooms, for example." He marked out three circles in a row, looking at Tom to ensure he was being understood. "While there are no wards on the Defense classrooms, there are charms ensuring no serious bodily injury may come from something like duelling practice or even schoolyard hexing."

"And the triangles?" Tom asked curiously, crossing a leg over another and propping his chin on two fingers. "What do they signify?"

"This is where my theory really comes into play," Corban grinned back in a rare moment of boyish excitement. "So, we know Hogwarts is at least partially sentient. We both experienced the same moving staircases, after all. But then there are those places either made by the Founders, such as the Chamber, or made by Hogwarts itself, such as-"

"The Come and Go Room," Tom finished in a pensive murmur.

"In _those_ cases, I believe Hogwarts latent magic may affect the horcruxes and the state of the soul shards as they are destroyed. Again, also taking into account the magical power and age of the creator when they were formed."

Tom stood, placing his glass on the table and joining his friend. "Severus told me the Potter boy was able to destroy my first horcrux in the Chamber itself." Taking the preferred chalk from Corban, he continued. "I wasn't of majority when it was created, so my core wasn't matured. As such, even the horcrux itself had limited power, only able to possess after a length of time." He drew a small rectangle with a jagged line through the centre in one of the triangles Corban had made. "Being that it was comparatively weaker than any later items, how would Hogwarts have affected the shard upon release?"

"Good question. First, let me ask, are you able to sense the individual returned portions?" Tom nodded. "You might find that specific shard feeling, hmm, Lighter? Hogwarts, theoretically, may be purifying any shards as their objects are destroyed within it. Any corruption to the piece would be cleared. When returned, the purified shard then has to fight to stay as such to compensate not only for the pieces still in other objects, but it has to fight against the Darkness which remained after you had made them all in your majority."

"What will happen if shards are destroyed both within and outside of Hogwarts?" Tom asked, concerned regarding the Gaunt ring destroyed on Little Hangleton.

"Ultimately nothing, however you may find instances of a 'crisis of conscience, 'if you will, where the purified soul attempts to override other shards. Once all are returned, you may experience physiological and psychological effects as they reconcile and merge, but otherwise your core will stabilise."

Tom looked alarmed at Corban's throwaway comment. "I won't be a raving nutter again, right?" His friend laughed and shook his head, laying a consoling hand upon Tom's shoulder.

"No, nothing so severe. Muscle aches as you've already experienced and likely the odd dream or night terror. Nothing with which a Dreamless Sleep or Soothing Salts can't assist." Warmth burgeoned in Corban's chest as his Lord seemed to deflate under his hand in relief. Returning the blackboard to its previous state, both men returned to their seats.

Tom gazed at his companion in the flickering light of the fire. "That wasn't all, was it?" A queer feeling wound within his gut watching one of his most devoted compatriots war with himself as inconspicuously as possible. Finally, Corban sighed, shoulders slumping a bit on contradiction with his upper-crust upbringing.

"No, Tom. No, it isn't." Corban leaned forward again, this time to make intentional, direct eye contact. "I can't see how not informing you of this would be to your benefit, but you should see it for yourself." Tom nodded and muttered the spell. Corban was instantly viewing the scene from earlier that day in his mind's eye.

 _He had been given an assignment to take down any new prophecies from the Ministry Seers. Walking past Brain and Time, he eventually came to the doors of the Hall of Prophecy. Ignoring the globes, he maneuvered down aisles to the antechamber in which the Seers worked, interconnected to each other and Magic itself. As soon as he entered and readied empty globes to collect their insights, an otherworldly dread laid across him like a woolen blanket._

 _All at once, five voices merged and unseeing eyes honed in on him._

" _Your equal in might_

 _You will know her by her magic._

 _Of wild hair and keen eyes,_

 _Short of stature and temperament._

 _She will know you by your name,_

 _Tom Marvolo Riddle._

 _A heretic born,_

 _A child twice damned,_

 _An Earthen Lady_

 _At His right hand._

 _A land of strife_

 _Which She will rend,_

 _The lines of old_

 _Which She shall end._

 _A woman reborn_

 _With blackened eyes._

 _Of mud and blood,_

 _An' She will rise."_

 _At once, they fell silent, heads turning back to look straight at the chamber ceiling as they had been when he had entered._

Tom pulled out of the memory with ease, however both men were bathed in sweat as they shared uneasy looks.

* * *

 **Present**

She was still screaming when he walked in, loud wails of horror he hadn't heard from her even as she had been tortured only days before. Upon her lay bits of grey flesh and spatters of bright blood. On the floor were two tiny elfen feet, one tipped on its side, seemingly torn from their body with impossible force.

"Severus," he muttered, activating the summons for the Potions Master's Mark. Not a second later, a dull pop sounded in the entry below and thundering steps were heard rushing up the stairs. At once, Tom realized he was not alone in his head, when the voice of Harry Potter let loose a shocked cry.

 _HERMIONE!_

 _ **I'm sorry, Potter, but I have to do this,**_ he replied to the teenager taking up real estate in his mind. Without another word, Tom partially occluded, shutting out the Chosen One's voice in favor of the girl still screaming in her bed.

As Severus came through the door from the sitting room, Tom waved his wand at Hermione. A stunning spell later, she was falling back quieted onto the pillows behind her. He could sense Harry's concern and fear even silenced as the teenager was. Without a word, he and Severus set the room to rights. Halfway through scourgifying the carpet, the equivalent of a mental knock occurred - a strange sensation indeed.

 _ **Yes?**_

 _You'll never get the slight browning out like that. Mrs. Weasley taught me one,_ glanadh domhainn _, which was pretty handy after George's ear got lobbed off and he bled all over the-_

 _ **Wand movements?**_

 _Oh, um, an open ended figure eight with a slight flourish clockwise. Keep your wrist tight at the end and just use your fingers to direct your wand._

Doing as such, he thanked the resident in his consciousness and continued to work. Severus had been sending furtive glances in his direction. "What is it, Severus?" His man seemed to waffle, chewing on the inside of his cheek in thought before finally answering.

"It's strange to see you care, I suppose. If I'm being honest." Severus levitated the figure above the bed slightly and sent a nonverbal cleaning charm to pull the elfen blood gently from her skin. It was said nonchalantly, and Tom thought, as inoffensively as the Potions Master could attempt. This belief was solidified when the taller man beside him continued. "Might I recommend timing a sleeping charm to activate when your stunner wears off?"

With a considering look, he finally nodded to Severus. Without another word, the two finished cleaning the bed and the woman in it. Minutes later they had completed the spellwork in the room and he turned to his friend as Severus made to leave. "Wait, I need your eyes for a moment." His esteem of the man, Harry agreeing within his mind, raised as Severus simply turned back around to stand by Tom.

" _Shiko te kaluaren_ ," the wand in his hand swept the walls and floor in a series of motions while he worked the charm. While he hadn't enjoyed his search for the Founders' relics, he had picked up a few tricks. In seconds, a ghostly image of the room shown in bright blue.

Hermione lay on the bed, tossing the duvet about in her distress. A figure popped into the centre of the bedroom suite, just feet from its charge. Hands wringing, the elf spoke only to receive no response. A minute went by at least of the little elf attempting to wake her mistress from her fitful sleep when he noticed a glowing begin in the elf's sternum. The creature tugged her pillowcase at the neck and tried to wake her ward again. The glowing intensified and spread even as the girl in the bed turned further into her nightmares. The elf began to clutch her throat and stomach when suddenly she was no longer there in a wet explosion, Hermione was sitting wide awake and terrified in bed.

He saw the lumos she cast, registered it with the sense of dread a muggle has when they watch a scary film at the cinema and a strange noise must be investigated on the screen. He wanted to still her hand, but the fact this had already happened stopped him. Besides, he was curious how her face looked when she realized what had happened.

Ah, there it was now. He was dismayed to find it didn't feel like he had thought, to watch her eyes close tight in hopeful denial before she opened them wide to take in the horror around her. Her plump lips splattered with the blood of one of the beings she had campaigned to save didn't bring him anything more than a frown.

He cancelled the spell and abruptly turned, walking out and leaving Severus to stare at his back. With a glance back at the figure tucked neatly once more beneath her expensive sheets, Severus, too, spun to follow his Lo- no, his _friend_ back into the sitting room. Tom was standing straight backed at the table, china delicately tinkling with his movements.

"As I'm sure you're aware, Severus, I am not alone in my head. That is a very strange sentence to say out loud, by the way. Tea?" His friend nodded gratefully and sat on a cushioned armchair by the fireplace.

"I appreciate that, Tom. Mr. Potter, I presume?" The charcoal-haired wizard at the table replied with a distracted noise and sent a tea cup levitating over.

"He'll be through momentarily," Tom stated without prompting, focus suddenly on the hearth. Within moments, Harry Potter was stepping through.

"Tea, Potter?" He asked of the boy. Messy hair the colour of pitch limply bobbed around his face as Harry tiredly shook his head and made for the small liquor cabinet near Hermione's bedroom.

"After dealing with Dumbledore alone I could have used a drink. This thing with Hermione had made it a powerful need indeed. Anyone? Snape?"

 _Fuck it,_ Severus thought, and stood to pour a bit of brandy into his teacup. Awkward silence reigned between the three of them as they sat and simply stared at one another.

"She blew up a blo- a fucking house elf!" Harry broke the quiet like a rock through a window and with about as much subtlety. Both elder wizards shared a long look while the Boy-Who-Lived tried to control his breathing.

"Accidental magic, Potter." Tom replied, his lips never moving from the porcelain rim of his cup. "Powerful, yes, but accidental nonetheless."

"Is that why Dumbledore asked if I could- if I-" Severus watched the boy flounder, green eyes expressive like his mother.

"You say Albus spoke with you about Miss Granger?" His measured words, thankfully, didn't have the same effect on Potter they had used to. Rather than immediately becoming possessed with the need to run his gob, the teenager shared a glance with his Lord, who replied.

"Albus Dumbledore seems to believe it's necessary to terminate Miss Granger's existence."

With the Dark Lord's words, Potter seemed to have found his resolve and spun the whole sordid story to Severus. When Severus discussed his own project at length, the whole picture started to make sense.

"I have to wonder if he knows about the prophecy," Tom wondered aloud, rubbing a finger along his lip in thought. "Alas, I will have to share that with you at a later date, Mister- Harry. It is far too late an hour and we all have busy days ahead of us." They made plans to meet again at a future date and Harry flooed back in short order to crawl into bed for four short hours' sleep.

* * *

"Paris, why? Why now?" Her mother's voice was pleading, the same way it did when she asked the man in the sky to make Hermione an angel. She asked her mother once whether she meant innocent or dead. When the woman didn't answer, eyes wide with shock and fear, Hermione simply shrugged like it was no matter and went back to colouring in her drawing.

Her dad mumbles something, probably trying to calm the increasingly hysterical woman. Suddenly, her mother's voice sounds all dreamy, like he has just gotten her roses or she is in the most pleasant fantasy. "I suppose it _would_ only be right to let him meet his granddaughter. It seems wrong to deny him family, my love."

Hermione snorts. Maybe her skyman finally gave her peace, if just to get her to shut her fat gob. Hermione figures even her mother's skyman was tired of listening to her every night; she knew _she_ was. At least the wretched cow had learned to keep her voice down… finally. Her dad comes out minutes later, talking about a car ride and ice cream, and within twenty minutes they are out the door. She ignores her mother's slightly too-wide smile as she waves her dish flannel from the porch.

"Will we be home in time for my programme?" She asks. _Your Mother Wouldn't Like That_ was going to be on at half-four. Her mother insisted the show was out of her age group, but learned to keep those opinions to herself. Besides, watching Mr. Briefcase (who reminded her of Mr. Brown down the road) suffer the indignities the kids forced upon him was honestly the only reason she watched aside from giggling at Palace Hill. She could care less about Cans, Loaf, or Tapeworm.

"Is a television programme more important than spending time with your poor, old dad now? Oh, just twist the knife while you've got it in!" He clutches the hand not holding the wheel to his chest dramatically when he pulls to a stop at a light, curls falling over his pained brow. "Have mercy, my darling Hermione!"

She giggles at his antics, joking about being merciful because she had no salt for his wound, and laughs even harder when he slaps the back of his hand to his brow in a swoon. Soon enough, they are pulling up to the kurb in front of a nondescript house Hermione doesn't recognize in a neighborhood too average to bear.

"Daddy, where are we?" A weird energy seems to radiate from the house, reaching her even as the car doors stay closed. Her dad looks tense and she notices the hairs on the back of his hands raise where they were clenched around the steering wheel, this time serious. He takes a deep breath and whooshes it out, plastering a smile on his face and turning to her.

"We're at your grandfather's - my father's - house," his simple reply spoke volumes. Normally her father would not hesitate to provide relevant information; names, relationships, commonalities to make social ingratiation easier, and the like. He does not get along with this person, she concludes.

Hermione turns, vinyl squeaking beneath her, and looks back at the house. Though the siding colour and shutters differed, the two-story home looks almost exactly like the two on either side of it, and - Hermione glances past her dad, ignoring the way he studies her - the ones across the road. Distantly, she registers they likely have the same or similar floor plans; convenient for both constructing and burglarizing.

"They were built to be cost-efficient, not extensions of self," her father's 'teacher' voice explains without prompting. She focuses on the house they were stopped at once more, absorbing his words.

"So your father is boring?" Paris laughs at that, the special laugh reserved just for her. Her chest warms and a smile blooms across her lips only to die a moment later as a thought occurs to her. "Or," she begins, turning to stare at her father assessingly. "He has something to hide." As his laughter slowly, awkwardly, tapers off, Paris turns wise, serious eyes on her.

"Hermione, your grandfather is far from boring, but he is also far from easy to read. Just don't take everything he says at its face value. He is a man of many layers. Do you understand what I mean, love?"

She nods back, putting her hand on his. "It's okay, Daddy. I know what to do." Without another word, she glances in the side view mirror to look for any traffic, meeting her own resolute stare. No traffic so she gets out and makes her way to the sidewalk, meeting her father's outstretched hand with her own.

Her first impression of Hector Dagworth-Granger is that he is a horrible sort.

"Paris," he greets her father gruffly. The slightly paunchy man radiates intense dislike for his own son. 'It wasn't always that way,' her dad had said of his relationship with her grandfather the one time she had asked before about the man. Looking at the disdain in the old man's eyes, though, she finds that difficult to believe.

Also difficult to believe is the look in those same cobalt blue eyes when they took a look at her. They glitter like the costume jewelry her Bubbe wears. Maybe that had been what the two had in common when they married and had her father. Internally, she judges that was _all_ they must've had in common, as the rotund, red-cheeked man turns back to her father to drop another backhanded comment.

They take tea and sweets in the sitting room. She hates it already. The room itself isn't so bad if one ignored the clear reminders a single, elderly man lived here. She sniffs delicately. A single, elderly man who smelled of muscle rub and decay. Hermione avoids sitting too heavily on the settee her father chooses lest she accidentally inhale the inevitable dust cloud of dirt and Hector's skin particles.

He turns to her again, too-friendly and too-inviting with his smile. It reminds her of the man who cleaned the floors at her school before he was put in jail. He was friendly, too. Never to her, no one was friendly to her, but Hermione remembers the smiles the man would give to the younger students, the special gifts. Hector wears that same eagerness like a cloak. She sips her tea, choking at how sweet it is but smiling politely because she has manners and her dad is _right there._

He asks about her. Her age, likes and dislikes, and she replies dutifully in a polite yet cold fashion. Adding a bit of a stutter gives her the benefit of looking shy and underwhelming.

"I- I'm nine, sir."

"I enjoy r-reading, and, uhm… I'm really good with, um, animals. Except angler fish." She adds for good measure. A well-placed ramble would make any adult mentally check-out.

"Good, good," Hector replies, and she can just see the mental image of him rubbing his hands together like a B-rate villain. He asks further about her studies and comments upon her exceptional grades and extra tutoring. The phone rings in the entry hall before her grandfather can speak another word, and he is out the door to answer it with a quickness she wasn't sure was healthy for a man his age.

"It's your wife," he grumbles to her father through the open entry. Her dad sighs and grunts as he stands, taking the handset from Hector with a restrained nod. A queer sensation fills her as Hector sits back down and looks at her once again with that smile and those eyes.

"So, Hermione." His voice is too smooth and she doesn't appreciate the undertones, the secretive way in which he leaned forward and places his gnarled hand on the edge of the table by her knee. He didn't touch her, but she recognizes the power play for what it is. "Your father says you're gifted."

She plays her part well, never once wavering from the socially awkward bookworm she wants him to see. "I- I suppose… sir."

"I bet you're also gifted in other ways," he replies, trying a bit too hard to seem like a confidant. She realizes what he means almost instantly. He knows she's different. Her gaze slowly rises to meet his and she lets the sight and sound of the telly when a channel is off-air fill her mind.

"Well," she starts, stopping to gnaw at her lip and shoot a slight look over her shoulder. "There was this one time." Hector leans close enough she can smell his oversteeped tea on his breath. "I wished and wished for a pet for my birthday. I let the wish fill me up. And when I woke up that morning, I had a fish. I really meant a cat, but daddy says 'beggars can't be choosers.' You mean like that Grandpa Hector?"

All at once, he sits straight in his chair, withdrawing his hand with shuttered eyes. "That's very special, Hermione," he responds in the same cold voice he used on her father, a hint of condescension peppering his tone. Her father sits back down a moment later and makes their excuses to leave. At the door, she makes sure to give Hector a large hug around his middle, over exuberant as only an annoying nine year old can be. He pats her head twice and her father sends her to wait in the car.

Her dad is red-faced when he gets in, but makes sure she knows she never has to see Hector again if she doesn't wish to. They turn at the cul-de-sac and start slowly back down the street when she catches Hector's eyes where he stands on the front porch. For a split second, she loathes him with her whole being, and then her dad takes hold of her hand and they head for ice cream. They are back in time for her programme and, if her mother makes her father's favourite meal that night with the same dreamy look, she doesn't comment.

Just like she doesn't comment almost a week later when the newspaper has a front page article about Hector's neighbourhood and a gas explosion caused by an overworked labourer. Hermione doesn't consider it a huge loss; he was kind of a jerk to her dad, after all.

* * *

A/N:

I DO allow use of things I may make up for this story, ONLY upon request and with proper credit given.

* _glanadh domhainn_ \- Gaelic housekeeping spell to lift deep stains.

-very noticeable, but handy when one has company drop by on the fly.

-fun fact: can be used offensively. Not super effective, but can cause something similar to rug burn.

* _Shiko te kaluaren_ \- Albanian Sight charm translating to "look at the past".

-When combined with the correct wandwork and intent, can last upwards of thirty minutes.

-Admissible in Wizengamot proceedings but rarely seen as it is not a common spell in Wizarding Britain.

-only shows events prior to the caster's involvement, i.e. Tom would only see his intended time frame up until he entered the room.

-cannot be altered in any way and is not influenced by emotion, either of the caster or the subjects involved.

Regarding Hector - it _wasn't_ Hermione. Consider what else you know.

Regarding story updates - the kids go back to school soon and I'm only picking up an extra day or two of hours at work, so I should be able to work on this more. The next chapter is likely to be the culmination of a few mysteries with which the characters are dealing, and the real trouble shows itself. See you all in a month, maybe less.


End file.
